Fall into autumn with #teampixel

With autumn in full swing, we’re taking note of the warmer colors being whisked into our feeds. This week, #teampixel wonderfully captures fall’s color palette, from burnt siennas to bright oranges. So grab a cup of tea, cozy up to the fire and flip through our favorite fall finds.

  • teampixel (1).png
    Left: the streets are on fire by @pipps_rogers. Right: fall feels by @nmbenoy
  • samarthv.pattar.jpg
    A muddy reflection by @samarthv.pattar
  • teampixel composite
    Left: the coast is clear in Amsterdam by @prateekkeshari. Right: terra cotta colored leaves in France by @axel_saly
  • krish_gan.jpeg
    It’s raining in Chennai by @krish_gan

You can also join @verizon and #teampixel as we pass along a Google Pixel 2 from coast to coast on Instagram. Check out some of the stunning photos from the trip—in scenic Athens, NY, historic Paris, TX, and delicious Venice, CA.

Want to get featured on The Keyword and @google? Make sure to tag your photos with #teampixel and you might be next.

Expanding access to renewable energy in the EU

Earlier this year, we hosted an event in Brussels that brought business leaders, policy makers and civil society together to discuss ways to ensure EU renewable energy policy meets the changing needs of consumers. Last week, we were back in Brussels to continue the discussion at RE-Source, the largest gathering in the EU to-date of companies committed to buying renewable energy to cover their operations.


With 14 data centers on four continents and offices in 150 cities around the globe, Google consumes a lot of power. And combating climate change requires the world to transition to a clean energy economy. So we’ve made it a top priority not only to become more energy efficient but also to ensure that the energy we purchase comes from clean sources such as renewables. We have also found that purchasing energy from renewable resources also makes good business sense, for two key reasons:

  • The cost to produce and deploy renewable energy technologies like wind and solar has come down precipitously in recent years. In fact, in a growing number of areas, renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy available on the grid.
  • For those of us who manage a global power portfolio like many corporations, renewable energy contracts provide financial certainty and protection against fuel-price volatility.
Gary Demasi at RE SOURCE
Gary Demasi, Global Director of Data Center Energy and Location Strategy, during a fireside chat with Sonja van Renssen, Co-founder, Energy Post, at RE-Source 2017

Google is the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world. To date, we’ve signed contracts to purchase 2.6 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy. In the EU alone, we have signed 669 MW of deals across 8 projects in Sweden, Norway, and The Netherlands and we are on track to reach 100% renewable energy for our operations in 2017—a major milestone. You can read more about our global sustainability efforts in the 2017 progress update of Google’s Environmental Report.


Despite this progress, many barriers to purchasing renewable energy still exist. The challenge ahead is to drive even more renewable purchasing and grow the size of the market. The EU is currently considering a series of directives on clean energy that provide opportunity to remove many of these barriers.  We look forward to working with EU policymakers and other stakeholders to ensure these efforts maximize the opportunity to scale renewables across Europe. For us, reaching 100% renewable energy purchasing on a global and annual basis is an important milestone but we’re just getting started. We want to help ensure that all energy consumers have a clear and easy path to choosing renewable sources.

Expanding access to renewable energy in the EU

Earlier this year, we hosted an event in Brussels that brought business leaders, policy makers and civil society together to discuss ways to ensure EU renewable energy policy meets the changing needs of consumers. Last week, we were back in Brussels to continue the discussion at RE-Source, the largest gathering in the EU to-date of companies committed to buying renewable energy to cover their operations.


With 14 data centers on four continents and offices in 150 cities around the globe, Google consumes a lot of power. And combating climate change requires the world to transition to a clean energy economy. So we’ve made it a top priority not only to become more energy efficient but also to ensure that the energy we purchase comes from clean sources such as renewables. We have also found that purchasing energy from renewable resources also makes good business sense, for two key reasons:

  • The cost to produce and deploy renewable energy technologies like wind and solar has come down precipitously in recent years. In fact, in a growing number of areas, renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy available on the grid.
  • For those of us who manage a global power portfolio like many corporations, renewable energy contracts provide financial certainty and protection against fuel-price volatility.
Gary Demasi at RE SOURCE
Gary Demasi, Global Director of Data Center Energy and Location Strategy, during a fireside chat with Sonja van Renssen, Co-founder, Energy Post, at RE-Source 2017

Google is the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world. To date, we’ve signed contracts to purchase 2.6 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy. In the EU alone, we have signed 669 MW of deals across 8 projects in Sweden, Norway, and The Netherlands and we are on track to reach 100% renewable energy for our operations in 2017—a major milestone. You can read more about our global sustainability efforts in the 2017 progress update of Google’s Environmental Report.


Despite this progress, many barriers to purchasing renewable energy still exist. The challenge ahead is to drive even more renewable purchasing and grow the size of the market. The EU is currently considering a series of directives on clean energy that provide opportunity to remove many of these barriers.  We look forward to working with EU policymakers and other stakeholders to ensure these efforts maximize the opportunity to scale renewables across Europe. For us, reaching 100% renewable energy purchasing on a global and annual basis is an important milestone but we’re just getting started. We want to help ensure that all energy consumers have a clear and easy path to choosing renewable sources.

Say “yes” to HTTPS: Chrome secures the web, one site at a time

Editor’s note: October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and we're celebrating with a series of security announcements this week. See our earlier posts on new security protections tailored for you, our new Advanced Protection Program, and our progress fighting phishing.

Security has always been one of Chrome’s core principles—we constantly work to build the most secure web browser to protect our users. Two recent studies concluded that Chrome was the most secure web browser in multiple aspects of security, with high rates of catching dangerous and deceptive sites, lightning-fast patching of vulnerabilities, and multiple layers of defenses.

About a year ago, we announced that we would begin marking all sites that are not encrypted with HTTPS as “not secure” in Chrome. We wanted to help people understand when the site they're on is not secure, and at the same time, provide motivation to that site's owner to improve the security of their site. We knew this would take some time, and so we started by only marking pages without encryption that collect passwords and credit cards. In the next phase, we began showing the “not secure” warning in two additional situations: when people enter data on an HTTP page, and on all HTTP pages visited in Incognito mode.

http search

It’s only been a year, but HTTPS usage has already made some incredible progress. You can see all of this in our public Transparency Report:


  • 64 percent of Chrome traffic on Android is now protected, up from 42 percent a year ago.

  • Over 75 percent of Chrome traffic on both ChromeOS and Mac is now protected, up from 60 percent on Mac and 67 percent on Chrome OS a year ago

  • 71 of the top 100 sites on the web use HTTPS by default, up from 37 a year ago

percentage of page loads over HTTPS in Chrome by platform
Percent of page loads over HTTPS in Chrome by platform

We’re also excited to see HTTPS usage increasing around the world. For example, we’ve seen HTTPS usage surge recently in Japan; large sites like Rakuten, Cookpad, Ameblo, and Yahoo Japan all made major headway towards HTTPS in 2017. Because of this, we’ve seen HTTPS in Japan surge from 31 percent to 55 percent in the last year, measured via Chrome on Windows. We see similar upward trends in other regions—HTTPS is up from 50 percent to 66 percent in Brazil, and 59 percent to 73 percent in the U.S.!


Ongoing efforts to bring encryption to everyone


To help site owners migrate (or originally create!) their sites on HTTPS, we want to make sure the process is as simple and cheap as possible. Let’s Encrypt is a free and automated certificate authority that makes securing your website cheap and easy. Google Chrome remains a Platinum sponsor of Let’s Encrypt in 2017, and has committed to continue that support next year.


Google also recently announced managed SSL for Google App Engine, and has started securing entire top-level Google domains like .foo and .dev by default with HSTS. These advances help make HTTPS automatic and painless, to make sure we’re moving towards a web that’s secure by default.


HTTPS is easier and cheaper than ever before, and it enables both the best performance the web offers and powerful new features that are too sensitive for HTTP. There’s never been a better time to migrate! Developers, check out our set-up guides to get started.

Say “yes” to HTTPS: Chrome secures the web, one site at a time

Editor’s note: October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and we're celebrating with a series of security announcements this week. See our earlier posts on new security protections tailored for you, our new Advanced Protection Program, and our progress fighting phishing.

Security has always been one of Chrome’s core principles—we constantly work to build the most secure web browser to protect our users. Two recent studies concluded that Chrome was the most secure web browser in multiple aspects of security, with high rates of catching dangerous and deceptive sites, lightning-fast patching of vulnerabilities, and multiple layers of defenses.

About a year ago, we announced that we would begin marking all sites that are not encrypted with HTTPS as “not secure” in Chrome. We wanted to help people understand when the site they're on is not secure, and at the same time, provide motivation to that site's owner to improve the security of their site. We knew this would take some time, and so we started by only marking pages without encryption that collect passwords and credit cards. In the next phase, we began showing the “not secure” warning in two additional situations: when people enter data on an HTTP page, and on all HTTP pages visited in Incognito mode.

http search

It’s only been a year, but HTTPS usage has already made some incredible progress. You can see all of this in our public Transparency Report:


  • 64 percent of Chrome traffic on Android is now protected, up from 42 percent a year ago.

  • Over 75 percent of Chrome traffic on both ChromeOS and Mac is now protected, up from 60 percent on Mac and 67 percent on Chrome OS a year ago

  • 71 of the top 100 sites on the web use HTTPS by default, up from 37 a year ago

percentage of page loads over HTTPS in Chrome by platform
Percent of page loads over HTTPS in Chrome by platform

We’re also excited to see HTTPS usage increasing around the world. For example, we’ve seen HTTPS usage surge recently in Japan; large sites like Rakuten, Cookpad, Ameblo, and Yahoo Japan all made major headway towards HTTPS in 2017. Because of this, we’ve seen HTTPS in Japan surge from 31 percent to 55 percent in the last year, measured via Chrome on Windows. We see similar upward trends in other regions—HTTPS is up from 50 percent to 66 percent in Brazil, and 59 percent to 73 percent in the U.S.!


Ongoing efforts to bring encryption to everyone


To help site owners migrate (or originally create!) their sites on HTTPS, we want to make sure the process is as simple and cheap as possible. Let’s Encrypt is a free and automated certificate authority that makes securing your website cheap and easy. Google Chrome remains a Platinum sponsor of Let’s Encrypt in 2017, and has committed to continue that support next year.


Google also recently announced managed SSL for Google App Engine, and has started securing entire top-level Google domains like .foo and .dev by default with HSTS. These advances help make HTTPS automatic and painless, to make sure we’re moving towards a web that’s secure by default.


HTTPS is easier and cheaper than ever before, and it enables both the best performance the web offers and powerful new features that are too sensitive for HTTP. There’s never been a better time to migrate! Developers, check out our set-up guides to get started.

Source: Google Chrome


The High Five: this week’s trends have a sweet tooth

A celebrity baby on the way, a sidelined NBA player, and ice cream for dessert: here’s a look at the week’s top-searched trends, with data from the Google News Lab.


Sing us a lullaby, you’re the Piano Man

Search interest in “Billy Joel age” went up nearly 8,000 percent this week after it was announced that the 68-year-old musician and his wife Alexis are expecting a child. Age was top of mind in the other searches as well: people asked “How old is Billy Joel’s wife?” and “How old is Billy Joel’s daughter?” as well as “How many children does Billy Joel have?”


I scream, you scream, we all search for the Museum of Ice Cream

After it it was reported that sprinkles from San Francisco’s Museum of Ice Cream (the interactive, social media-friendly art installation that’s already swept Los Angeles) have been found all around the city, search interest in “Museum of Ice Cream” rose nearly 5,00 percent. People are searching for the scoop: “How much are Museum of Ice Cream tickets?” “Who created the Museum of Ice Cream?” and “How to start something like the Museum of Ice Cream?” (Apparently it takes a lot of sprinkles.) And while we’re dishing out the ice cream trends ... the top-searched types of ice cream this week were “rolled ice cream,” “mochi ice cream,” and “vegan ice cream.”


NBA season tips off

After Boston Celtics forward Gordon Hayward fell to the floor with a fractured tibia and dislocated ankle on Wednesday (the first night of the NBA season), people searched: “How long will Gordon Hayward be out?” “How long does a fractured ankle take to heal?” and “How long is Gordon Hayward’s contract with the Celtics?” After the injury, search interest in Gordon Hayward shot up nearly 52,000 percent—making him the most searched NBA player on opening night (followed by LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Steph Curry).


Let them eat (10-foot) cake

Rapper Gucci Mane had an extravagant wedding this week, and the highlight was a 10-foot-tall $75,000 cake, prompting people to search: “How much was Gucci Mane’s wedding?” “Where was Gucci Mane’s wedding?” and “Who was at Gucci Mane’s wedding?” (Hopefully enough people to eat all that cake.) While the decadent dessert may have raised questions about the rapper’s fortune, interest in “Gucci Mane wedding” was searched 2.5 times more than “Gucci Mane net worth.”


I’m feeling spooky

In the weeks leading up to Halloween, some have existential questions about the holiday (the top searched question was ”Why do people wear costumes for Halloween?”), while others are focused on finding the perfect costume: “What should I be for Halloween?” “How to make a Halloween costume?” and “What is the most popular Halloween costume?” We’ve got the last question covered—Google’s Frightgeist can tell you what people around the country or in your own hometown are searching for this Halloween.

Source: Search


The High Five: this week’s trends have a sweet tooth

A celebrity baby on the way, a sidelined NBA player, and ice cream for dessert: here’s a look at the week’s top-searched trends, with data from the Google News Lab.


Sing us a lullaby, you’re the Piano Man

Search interest in “Billy Joel age” went up nearly 8,000 percent this week after it was announced that the 68-year-old musician and his wife Alexis are expecting a child. Age was top of mind in the other searches as well: people asked “How old is Billy Joel’s wife?” and “How old is Billy Joel’s daughter?” as well as “How many children does Billy Joel have?”


I scream, you scream, we all search for the Museum of Ice Cream

After it it was reported that sprinkles from San Francisco’s Museum of Ice Cream (the interactive, social media-friendly art installation that’s already swept Los Angeles) have been found all around the city, search interest in “Museum of Ice Cream” rose nearly 5,00 percent. People are searching for the scoop: “How much are Museum of Ice Cream tickets?” “Who created the Museum of Ice Cream?” and “How to start something like the Museum of Ice Cream?” (Apparently it takes a lot of sprinkles.) And while we’re dishing out the ice cream trends ... the top-searched types of ice cream this week were “rolled ice cream,” “mochi ice cream,” and “vegan ice cream.”


NBA season tips off

After Boston Celtics forward Gordon Hayward fell to the floor with a fractured tibia and dislocated ankle on Wednesday (the first night of the NBA season), people searched: “How long will Gordon Hayward be out?” “How long does a fractured ankle take to heal?” and “How long is Gordon Hayward’s contract with the Celtics?” After the injury, search interest in Gordon Hayward shot up nearly 52,000 percent—making him the most searched NBA player on opening night (followed by LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Steph Curry).


Let them eat (10-foot) cake

Rapper Gucci Mane had an extravagant wedding this week, and the highlight was a 10-foot-tall $75,000 cake, prompting people to search: “How much was Gucci Mane’s wedding?” “Where was Gucci Mane’s wedding?” and “Who was at Gucci Mane’s wedding?” (Hopefully enough people to eat all that cake.) While the decadent dessert may have raised questions about the rapper’s fortune, interest in “Gucci Mane wedding” was searched 2.5 times more than “Gucci Mane net worth.”


I’m feeling spooky

In the weeks leading up to Halloween, some have existential questions about the holiday (the top searched question was ”Why do people wear costumes for Halloween?”), while others are focused on finding the perfect costume: “What should I be for Halloween?” “How to make a Halloween costume?” and “What is the most popular Halloween costume?” We’ve got the last question covered—Google’s Frightgeist can tell you what people around the country or in your own hometown are searching for this Halloween.

Turns out, security drives cloud adoption — not the other way around

By Rob Sadowski, Trust & Security, Google Cloud 

Download the global report conducted on behalf of Google Cloud in association with MIT SMR Custom Studio.

The elastic, on-demand nature of the cloud gives developers and IT teams flexible ways to consume computing resources. For enterprises well into their cloud journey, it should be no surprise that a MIT Sloan Management Review survey of more than 500 IT and business executives cited the “increased need for agility and speed” as the primary driver of increased cloud usage.

What may be unexpected however is that this same pool of respondents cited their “increased confidence in cloud security” as a nearly equal driver of increased cloud usage. In fact, agility and security together were cited as the top dual reasons for expanding their cloud usage. Because security concerns have traditionally topped the list of inhibitors to cloud adoption, these survey results are noteworthy to the extent that they signal a broader shift in trust. IT leaders polled in this survey recognize that aspects of public cloud can actually enhance security — a theme that our teams at Google Cloud see with increasing frequency as we consult with business and IT leaders.

Three out of four business and IT leaders polled in the MIT survey indicated that they’ve become more confident in cloud security over the past two years. This coincides with a boost in the proportion of enterprise workloads they’re running in the public cloud: 24% of workloads in the two years prior to the survey, with an anticipated 65% of workloads running in the cloud two years from now. As indicated, agility (45%) and security (44%) were cited as the top reasons behind this expansion — with cost savings (34%) a trailing third.

This report looks at security implications encountered by enterprises as they move more of their workloads to the cloud. You can download the report to learn more about:

  1. What are the top enterprise workloads leaders indicate they currently have deployed to the cloud? What’s on the horizon to be deployed? 
  2. What data types do leaders indicate they’re most likely to host in the cloud? 
  3. Does this differ for industries where data is heavily regulated? Does firsthand experience or cloud maturity affect perceptions about whether the cloud is secure? Are the threats real or perceived? 
  4. What levels of skepticism exist around security — grouped by job function, responsibility and firm size?
  5. What is actually behind the jump in confidence around cloud security? How are these organizations actually going about assessing security? 
  6. What do leaders indicate are the top security requirements for their organizations?

Google Cloud has invested deeply in security, from purpose-built hardware in its data centers, physical security and our encryption practices, to Google’s own global network. As organizations across every industry accelerate their adoption of public cloud and treat it as a major pillar of their IT strategy, Google Cloud is an excellent choice to help IT leaders implement advanced security practices for their organizations. To talk security or to share with us the challenges you’re facing with sensitive or mission-critical workloads, reach out to us.

Applications are open for 2018 scholarship opportunities in the US, Canada, and EMEA!

Google is proud to offer academic scholarships and development opportunities to students from historically underrepresented groups pursuing computer science degrees. We aim to help students from diverse backgrounds become future leaders and role models in computing and technology by breaking down the barriers that prevent them from entering these fields.  


Selected students will receive a financial award for the 2018-19 academic year and be invited to the annual Google Scholars' Retreat in their region next summer. At the retreat, scholars will participate in networking and development sessions, including sessions on how to lead outreach in their communities. Scholars also join long term a community of former scholarship recipients for continued networking and development.  Check out each program below:

Women Techmakers Scholars Program (United States/Canada/EMEA - Asia Pacific will open in early 2018)
The Women Techmakers Scholars Program (formerly known as  the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship) continues to honor Dr. Anita Borg and her legacy of encouraging the presence of women in computing. The program is open to current undergraduate or graduate students who identify as female who will be studying at a university for the 2018-2019 academic year.

Generation Google Scholarship (United States/Canada)
The Generation Google Scholarship was established to help aspiring computer scientists excel in technology and become leaders in the field. This program supports current university students from underrepresented groups including African American, Hispanic, American Indian or Filipino/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander who will be studying at a university for the 2018-2019 academic year.
The Generation Google Scholarship for current high school seniors in the United States/Canada will open in early 2018.

We’re continuing to partner with Lime Connect (United States/Canada) and EmployAbility (Europe) - nonprofit organizations that support students with disabilities while they pursue education and promising careers - to help university students with disabilities work toward their academic goals in the field of computer science. The scholarship is open to current undergraduate or graduate students with disabilities who will be studying at a university for the 2018-2019 academic year.

Google established the Google SVA Scholarship in partnership with Student Veterans of America in 2012 as part of our commitment to military veterans. The scholarship provides assistance to student veterans or students on Active Duty who are pursuing a degree in computer science at a university for the 2018-2019 academic year.

Please visit each program’s website for specific details, application information, and deadlines. We encourage all students who meet the eligibility criteria to apply!

New Android Management API delivers simple, powerful tools for enterprise

Managing mobile devices and applications can be a challenge for businesses and partners of all sizes.


Today, our Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) partners write their own management app in order to enable management of Android devices; we call this a “device policy controller” (DPC) app. A DPC app is essentially an agent deployed by the EMM, with the real value living in the console and back end, which the app communicates with directly.  


Now, with our newest tool, the Android Management API, customers and EMMs can manage devices using a server-side API and eliminate the need to write a management app. The Android Management API takes on this complexity so partners can focus on what’s important to their customers and not worry about the underlying Android framework.


Now, creating policies for your device fleet is as simple as creating a Google Cloud project and making a couple of REST API calls. The Android Management API is built around policies, rather than discrete transactions; just tell the API how a device should be managed.

Behind the scenes, Google interprets these policies into a specific set of actions for the target device, and executes those requests using the Android Device Policy app, a Google-made managing agent. Because we provides the managing agent, developers don’t need to handle nuances of the framework implementation, such as which APIs are available or what bugs need to be worked around on given versions of Android.
Android devices

We’ve been testing the Android Management API with several early access partners. Mobiltec, which has launched a validated Corporate Owned Single-Use (COSU) solution, found the new API sped up the company’s EMM efforts by easing back on some development needs.


“Android Management API is a powerful Cloud Platform API that allows us to easily integrate Android EMM functions to cloud4mobile, our EMM tool. With this new management API, we can deliver top-of-market EMM solutions to a wide range of devices,” says Paulo Morandi, senior software architect at Mobiltec. “Since we don't need to develop our own DPC (device policy controller), new features can be added in minutes; just some HTTP requests and you are done.”

 

The Android Management API is compatible with any device running Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) or above that has Google Play installed. Designed with the needs of businesses in mind, it doesn't matter if an organization's devices come from one or many manufacturers—this new API provides a consistent way to manage a device.


Our first set of APIs focus on purpose-built devices use cases, such as digital signage, ticket printing, or kiosks. Over the coming months, our team of engineers will add more features to cover knowledge worker management use cases, and ultimately all Android enterprise solution sets.


The Android Management API is now available in beta for all partners and developers, whether they are developing EMM software, purpose-built specific applications, or an in-house solution for an organization.


Want to try it out? Using Google’s API Explorer, you can try out the API and provision a device in minutes. All you need is a new or factory reset Android 6.0+ device and a Gmail account. Check out the Quick Start Guide to discover how quickly things can get up and running. We hope this makes development easier for partners and helps them bring the latest Android features to customers faster.