Explore the Galapagos’ biodiversity with Street View

This week marks the 178th anniversary of Darwin’s first exploration of the Galapagos Islands. This volcanic archipelago is one of the most biodiverse and unique places on the planet, with species that have remarkably adapted to their environment. Through observing the animals, Darwin made key insights that informed his theory of evolution. Here’s a short documentary that captures the 10-day expedition:

Today, in partnership with the Directorate of the Galapagos National Park and Charles Darwin Foundation, we’re launching the 360-degree images from the Galapagos Islands that we collected in May with the Street View Trekker. Now, you can visit the islands from anywhere you may be, and see many of the animals that Darwin experienced on his historic and groundbreaking journey in 1835.

Darwin may have first sighted San Cristobal Island from the water, perhaps near where we sailed with the Trekker strapped to a boat in order to observe the craggy shoreline and the Magnificent Frigatebirds that the rocky landscape shelters. After landing on San Cristobal, we made our way to Galapaguera Cerro Colorado, a breeding center that helps to restore the population of the island tortoises, seriously threatened by invasive species. Wearing the Trekker, we walked by giant tortoises munching on leafy stalks and recently hatched baby tortoises.

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The Galapaguera plays a critical role in conservation of the giant tortoises

Darwin visited Floreana Island, but he didn’t have the scuba gear needed to properly explore the marine life just off the island’s coast. Thanks to our partner, Catlin Seaview Survey and their SVII underwater camera, we were able to collect underwater imagery of some especially energetic and inquisitive sea lions that came out to see whether the divers wanted to play!

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The playful Galapagos Sea Lion is one of the endemic species of the islands

On our hike through the wetlands of Isabela Island, we spotted some marine iguanas, including this one sunning itself after a morning swim. On North Seymour Island, we got up close and personal to blue-footed boobies performing their mating dance and the Magnificent Frigatebirds with their red throat sacs.

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The blue-footed boobies on North Seymour island

The extensive Street View imagery of the Galapagos Islands won’t just enable armchair travelers to experience the islands from anywhere in the world—it will also play an instrumental role in the ongoing research of the environment, conservation, animal migration patterns and the impact of tourism on the islands. See our Lat Long blog post for an example of how the imagery will be used for scientific research.

Visit our behind-the-scenes experience and tune in to an exclusive Google+ Hangout with the Google Maps team and our partners at 9:00 a.m. PT today to learn more about this special collection of imagery.

Posted by Raleigh Seamster, Project Lead, Google Earth Outreach

We are joining the Open edX platform

Posted by Dan Clancy, Director of Research

A year ago, we released Course Builder, an experimental platform for online education at scale. Since then, individuals have created courses on everything from game theory to philanthropy, offered to curious people around the world. Universities and non-profit organizations have used the platform to experiment with MOOCs, while maintaining direct relationships with their participants. Google has published a number of courses including Introduction to Web Accessibility which opens for registration today. This platform is helping to deliver on our goal of making education more accessible through technology, and enabling educators to easily teach at scale on top of cloud platform services.

Today, Google will begin working with edX as a contributor to the open source platform, Open edX. We are taking our learnings from Course Builder and applying them to Open edX to further innovate on an open source MOOC platform. We look forward to contributing to edX’s new site, MOOC.org, a new service for online learning which will allow any academic institution, business and individual to create and host online courses.

Google and edX have a shared mission to broaden access to education, and by working together, we can advance towards our goals much faster. In addition, Google, with its breadth of applicable infrastructure and research capabilities, will continue to make contributions to the online education space, the findings of which will be shared directly to the online education community and the Open edX platform.

We support the development of a diverse education ecosystem, as learning expands in the online world. Part of that means that educational institutions should easily be able to bring their content online and manage their relationships with their students. Our industry is in the early stages of MOOCs, and lots of experimentation is still needed to find the best way to meet the educational needs of the world. An open ecosystem with multiple players encourages rapid experimentation and innovation, and we applaud the work going on in this space today.

We appreciate the community that has grown around the Course Builder open source project. We will continue to maintain Course Builder, but are focusing our development efforts on Open edX, and look forward to seeing edX’s MOOC.org platform develop. In the future, we will provide an upgrade path to Open edX and MOOC.org from Course Builder. We hope that our continued contributions to open source education projects will enable anyone who builds online education products to benefit from our technology, services and scale. For learners, we believe that a more open online education ecosystem will make it easier for anyone to pick up new skills and concepts at any time, anywhere.

Make Your Websites More Accessible to More Users with Introduction to Web Accessibility

Eve Andersson, Manager, Accessibility Engineering

Cross-posted with Google Developer's Blog

You work hard to build clean, intuitive websites. Traffic is high and still climbing, and your website provides a great user experience for all your users, right? Now close your eyes. Is your website easily navigable? According to the World Health Organization, 285 million people are visually impaired. That’s more than the populations of England, Germany, and Japan combined!

As the web has continued to evolve, websites have become more interactive and complex, and this has led to a reduction in accessibility for some users. Fortunately, there are some simple techniques you can employ to make your websites more accessible to blind and low-vision users and increase your potential audience. Introduction to Web Accessibility is Google’s online course that helps you do just that.



You’ll learn to make easy accessibility updates, starting with your HTML structure, without breaking code or sacrificing a beautiful user experience. You’ll also learn tips and tricks to inspect the accessibility of your websites using Google Chrome extensions. Introduction to Web Accessibility runs with support from Google content experts from September 17th - 30th, and is recommended for developers with basic familiarity with HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.

There’s a lot to learn in the realm of web accessibility, and a lot of work to be done to ensure users aren’t excluded from being able to easily navigate the web. By introducing fundamental tips to improve web usage for users with visual impairments, Introduction to Web Accessibility is a starting point to learn how to build accessibility features into your code. Registration is now open, so sign up today and help push the web toward becoming truly universally accessible.

Get that world to listen: Celebrating the Clash, an iconic band

It was clear from the first chords of their 1977 debut album that the Clash were more than just a punk band. Their politically charged lyrics combined with their hunger for new rhythms gave them an unparalleled ability to create music that made you think as well as dance. They embraced all genres while still sounding like themselves and redefined what a rock group could accomplish musically, politically and culturally.

From the reggae-inspired social commentary of tracks like “White Man in Hammersmith Palais,” to hip-hop infused cuts like “Magnificent Seven” and even Top 40 hits such as “Rock the Casbah,” their songs gave a generation a lifelong connection not just to the Clash, but to music in general.

From time to time, Google Play teams up with iconic rockers to help tell their stories. When we heard that the Clash were planning to re-release some of their greatest music, we wanted to celebrate their legacy and create something cool for their fans around the world. They handed over hours of unseen footage of the late Joe Strummer discussing the arc of the band’s career. And the Google Play team interviewed the rest of the members to get their perspective on what they accomplished and how they did it. The result is “Audio Ammunition,” a free, five-part documentary about the Clash that walks through the writing, recording and reception of each of their classic studio albums.

Watch part one of the documentary on Google Play, and you can check out the other four parts on our YouTube channel at youtube.com/googleplay. You can also buy all five of their newly released, digitally remastered albums on Google Play. And because the Clash’s legacy continues to inspire musicians today, we’ve produced some exclusive cover versions by contemporary artists we admire. These four tracks are available as free downloads for a limited time on Google Play.

The Clash explored a world of ever-expanding rhythms and possibilities and the urgency and power of their music still resonates today. As bassist Paul Simonon says. “We weren’t concerned with playing just on our doorstep. It was to play on any doorstep, throughout the world.”


Posted by Tim Quirk, head of content programming for Google Play

Just a Reflektor: a virtual projection with Arcade Fire

Since Chrome launched in 2008, we’ve been experimenting with new ways to tell stories on the web using 3D graphics, immersive sound effects and more. In the last few years, the mobile web has also exploded, so we wanted to explore what kind of new interactions were possible using the latest technologies available on Chrome for Mobile.

“Just A Reflektor” is an interactive film directed by Vincent Morisset and featuring a new song from Arcade Fire. The film lets you cast a virtual projection on your computer screen by holding up your mobile device in front of your computer’s webcam. That way, you control all of the visual effects in the experience—not by moving a mouse on a screen, but by moving your phone or tablet through the physical space around you.

The film’s heroine, Axelle, is revealed through a spotlight that moves in time with your mobile device.

In a later scene, a liquid effect is combined with a time delay, creating a video collage.

About four minutes into the film, the “reflektor” is turned toward Axelle herself.

To explore the effects used in the film, see the technology page, where you can adjust a number of visual settings and create your own effects using a robust editor. You can also watch a behind-the-scenes video to learn about how the film was made. The code for the film and tech page is open source, so creative coders can download it and try it for themselves.

The technology page lets you create, edit and share your own visual effects using footage from the film.

We hope this project inspires more filmmakers and visual artists to experiment with the latest features in Chrome. And for everyone else, we hope “Just A Reflektor” offers a new, exciting way to interact with the web.

Posted by Aaron Koblin, Google Creative Lab

(Cross-posted from the Chrome Blog)

What is the State of the European Union? #askbarroso

Is Europe really emerging from the financial crisis? What’s going to happen to Europe’s 5 million unemployed young people? Does the rise of euro-sceptic politics spell the end of the EU as we know it? Will Europe act on Syria?

Now’s your chance to put these questions and others to the man in charge of the European Commission, President José Manuel Barroso, in a special, live State of the European Union Hangout interview, hosted by the euronews Global Conversation team, but driven by you.

The Hangout on Air takes place on Thursday, September 12 at 20:50 CET / 11:50 PDT, one day after President Barroso’s 2013 State of the European Union address.



euronews is soliciting questions, comments and ideas for the interview until 12:00 CET / 03:00 PDT on Wednesday, September 11. No topic is too big or too small—all you need to do is submit your question (text or video) on Google+, Twitter and Facebook using the hashtag #askbarroso. The authors of the best questions—as chosen by euronews editors—will be invited to interview the President in person, live, in the Google+ Hangout.

To tune in, visit the European Commission’s Google+ page Thursday, September 12 at 20:50 CET / 11:50 PDT. And of course, you can keep commenting up to and after the interview using the hashtags #askbarroso and #SOTEU.

Posted by Al Verney, Communications Manager, Google Brussels

Don’t get locked out: set up recovery options for your Google Account

This summer we’re posting regularly with privacy and security tips. Knowing how to stay safe and secure online is important, which is why we created our Good to Know site with advice and tips for safe and savvy Internet use. -Ed.

Strong passwords help protect your accounts and information on the web. But forgetting your password is like losing your keys—you can end up locked out of your own home. It gets worse if your password gets compromised or stolen. Sometimes the thief will change your password so you can't get back into your own account—kind of like someone stealing your keys and then changing the lock.

If you've lost your Google password, you need a way to get back into your Google Account—and back to all of your stuff in Gmail, Maps, Google+ and YouTube. To help you, Google needs to be able to tell that you’re the rightful account owner even if you don't have the right password. There are a few easy steps you can take right now to make it easy for you—and no one else—to get into your Google Account if you forget or don’t know the password.

1. Add a recovery email address. By registering an alternate email address with your Google Account settings, you’re giving Google another way to reach you. If you forget your password, Google can send a link to that recovery email address so you can reset your password. Google can also use that email address to let you know if we detect something suspicious happening with your account.

Setting up your recovery options can help you get back in

if you get locked out of your Google Account

2. Add a phone number to your Google Account. Your mobile phone is the best way to regain access to your account if you forget your password. It's like the "fast lane" for account recovery: we text a code to the phone number you've registered with us, and you're back in business in no time. Your phone is more secure and reliable than other means of recovering your account. Methods like “secret” questions (asking your mother’s maiden name or city where you were born) may have answers that are easy to remember, but they are also possible for bad guys to uncover. And we’ve consistently seen that people who register a recovery phone are faster and more successful at getting their accounts back than those recovering their accounts via email.

You can also get a text message if Google detects that something suspicious is going on with your account. Giving a recovery phone number to Google won’t result in you being signed up for marketing lists or getting more calls from telemarketers.

3. Keep your recovery options up to date. It’s a good idea to check your recovery options every so often. For example, if you change your phone number after setting up your recovery options, take just a minute to update your recovery settings to match. We'll remind you of your current settings every so often to make it easier for you to keep them up to date.

That’s it! You can either update your recovery options next time you’re prompted, or you can take two minutes to do it right now on our Account recovery options page. For more advice on how to protect yourself and your family online, visit our Good to Know site, or check out some of the other posts in our series on staying safe and secure.

Posted by Diana Smetters, Software Engineer

A petition for greater transparency

Today we filed an amended petition (PDF) in the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. This petition mirrors the requests made to Congress and the President by our industry and civil liberties groups in a letter (PDF) earlier this year. Namely, that Google be allowed to publish detailed statistics about the types (if any) of national security requests we receive under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, including Section 702. Given the important public policy issues at stake, we have also asked the court to hold its hearing in open rather than behind closed doors. It’s time for more transparency.

In addition, along with a number of other companies and trade associations, we are meeting the President’s Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies today. We’ll reiterate the same message there: that the levels of secrecy that have built up around national security requests undermine the basic freedoms that are at the heart of a democratic society.

Posted by Richard Salgado, Director, Law Enforcement & Information Security and Pablo Chavez, Director, Public Policy and Government Affairs

(Cross-posted on the Public Policy Blog)

A Comparison of Five Google Online Courses

Posted by Julia Wilkowski, Senior Instructional Designer

Google has taught five open online courses in the past year, reaching nearly 400,000 interested students. In this post I will share observations from experiments with a year’s worth of these courses. We were particularly surprised by how the size of our courses evolved during the year; how students responded to a non-linear, problem-based MOOC; and the value that many students got out of the courses, even after the courses ended.

Observation #1: Course size
We have seen varying numbers of registered students in the courses. Our first two courses (Power Searching versions one and two) garnered significant interest with over 100,000 students registering for each course. Our more recent courses have attracted closer to 40,000 students each. It’s likely that this is a result of initial interest in MOOCs starting to decline as well as students realizing that online courses require significant commitment of time and effort. We’d like other MOOC content aggregators to share their results so that we can identify overall MOOC patterns.

*based on surveys sent only to course completers. Other satisfaction scores represent aggregate survey results sent to all registrants.

Observation #2: Completion rates
Comparing these five two-week courses, we notice that most of them illustrate a completion rate (measured by the number of students who meet the course criteria for completion divided by the total number of registrants) of between 11-16%. Advanced Power Searching was an outlier at only 4%. Why? A possible answer can be found by comparing the culminating projects for each course: Power Searching consisted of students completing a multiple choice test; Advanced Power Searching students completed case studies of applying skills to research problems. After grading their work, students also had to solve a final search challenge.

Advanced Power Searching also differed from all of the other courses in the way it presented content and activities. Power Searching offered videos and activities in a highly structured, linear path; Advanced Power Searching presented students with a selection of challenges followed by supporting lessons. We observed a decreasing number of views on each challenge page similar to the pattern in the linear course (see figure 1).

Figure 1. Unique page views for Power Searching and Advanced Power Searching

Students who did complete Advanced Power Searching expressed satisfaction with the course (95% of course completing students would recommend the course to others, compared with 94% of survey respondents from Power Searching). We surmise that the lower completion rate for Advanced Power Searching compared to Power Searching could be a result of the relative difficulty of this course (it assumed significantly more foundational knowledge than Power Searching), the unstructured nature of the course, or a combination of these and other factors.

Even though completion rates seem low when compared with traditional courses, we are excited about the sheer number of students we’ve reached through our courses (over 51,000 earning certificates of completion). If we offered the same content to classrooms of 30 students, it would take over four and a half years of daily classes to teach the same information!

Observation #3: Students have varied goals
We would also like to move the discussion beyond completion rates. We’ve noticed that students register for online courses for many different reasons. In Mapping with Google, we asked students to select a goal during registration. We discovered that

• 52% of registrants intended to complete the course
• 48% merely wanted to learn a few new things about Google’s mapping tools

Post-course surveys revealed that

• 78% of students achieved the goal they defined at registration
• 89% of students learned new features of Google Maps
• 76% reported learning new features of Google Earth

Though a much smaller percentage of students completed course requirements, these statistics show that many of the students attained their learning goals.

Observation #4: Continued interest in post-course access
After each course ended, we kept many of the course materials (videos, activities) available. Though we removed access to the forums, final projects/assessments, and teaching assistants, we have seen significant interest in the content as measured by Google and YouTube Analytics. The Power Searching course pages have generated nearly three million page views after the courses finished; viewers have watched over 160,000 hours (18 years!) of course videos. In the two months since Mapping with Google finished, we have seen over 70,000 unique visitors to the course pages.

In all of our courses, we saw a high number of students interested in learning online: 96% of Power Searching participants agreed or strongly agreed that they would take a course in a similar format. We have succeeded in teaching tens of thousands of students to be more savvy users of Google tools. Future posts will take an in-depth look at our experiments with self-graded assessments, community elements that enhance learning, and design elements that influence student success.

An intern’s summer experience: Support from employee resource groups

With The Internship premiering just days before I started my intern orientation at Google, my friends were more excited about my summer job than one might normally expect. But my internship was special for reasons beyond the Hollywood notoriety that accompanied my arrival to Mountain View. One of those reasons was the active presence of Google’s Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and how welcoming they’ve been to interns.

Open to Googlers everywhere, ERGs are grassroots networks with shared values of supporting diversity and inclusion throughout our company and our communities. Surprised to discover that 20+ unique ERGs existed to begin with, I was relieved when I found out that interns, who are treated like full-time Googlers, could participate in them as well.

From ice cream socials to BBQs and salsa dancing, ERGs gave us opportunities to get to know Googlers from different seniority levels and functions—while having fun! The events I attended brought interns together with entry-level Googlers, managers, directors and senior VPs; Googlers in sales, marketing, people operations, global business, small business (SMB) services and engineering.

While many ERG events are social, Googlers in these groups also have a deep impact on social issues and the company at large. In light of the DOMA decision in June, Gayglers rallied the entire office for San Francisco’s Pride parade. Some of my fellow interns described the parade as a highlight. Shawn Saunders, a senior at Brown University and SMB services intern, told me “through the Gayglers, I was able to find a community of queer and allied Googlers who really helped color my experiences at Google.”

The Special Needs Network engaged interns in this summer’s Disability Pride Parade. Aubrie Lee, a senior at Stanford University and people operations intern, told me the Googlers in the Special Needs Network “with or without disabilities—understand that diversity is not just about color or orientation. They are my allies in fighting stigma, both in the world and at work."

In response to the Trayvon Martin verdict, the Black Googler’s Network (BGN) organized a hoodie march on campus to raise awareness around unconscious bias and racial profiling. The march had a profound impact on me in showing the value of community and support among black Googlers. As Tanisha Hospedale, a senior at the University of Pennsylvania and People Operations intern, said, “I am very grateful for BGN and the family I have made from being a part of this group.”

One major takeaway from my internship is that Google continues to be a place where Googlers can bring their total selves to work while also having strong, supportive communities to fall back on. “I can tell that Google doesn't just talk about a commitment to diversity and inclusion, but actually demonstrates this through supporting ERGs,” said Jasmine McElroy, a senior at Howard University and People Operations intern. “These groups have made me feel like I belong here.”

Posted by Shawn Dye, People Operations BOLD intern and senior Stanford University