Author Archives: Ben Fried

Investing in the next generation of NY tech talent

New York City is my home. I’m a proud graduate and parent of three children in the New York City public school system, and I chose to stay and build my career here. Twelve years ago, after a career on Wall Street, I joined Google and currently serve as Chief Information Officer (CIO) and co-site lead for Google’s growing New York campus. Like me, Google has been fortunate to call New York home and is committed to connecting students, teachers and job seekers to the local tech economy. 


Today, as part of Google’s commitment to the continued growth of our city’s current and future tech workforce, Google.org is announcing $3.5 million in grants to three local organizations: Pursuit, ExpandEd Schools and CS4All. 


Supporting organizations like these is especially important as the COVID-19 pandemic has unearthed unsettling truths about equity and access to resources, especially in underserved communities of color. As we navigate the short and long term effects of the pandemic, we must come together to create equitable solutions that meet the needs of the moment and provide a strong foundation for the future. This starts by making sure every New Yorker has access to a quality education and the training and resources needed for in-demand jobs—these grantees are working to make this possible. 


Pursuit: Connecting New Yorkers to careers in tech 

Pursuit creates economic opportunity for adults from low-income communities by training them to code and build careers in technology. Their fellows come from groups that are historically underrepresented in tech and are made up of majority Black or Latino people, women, immigrants and those without Bachelor’s degrees. Upon completing the fellowship, they go on to work at top tech companies, increasing their salaries from $18,000 to $85,000 on average. With $2 million in funding from Google.org, Pursuit will build on its work to remove systemic barriers preventing low-income communities from accessing careers in technology and connect 10,000 New Yorkers with jobs in the tech industry. 

 

ExpandEd Schools: Supporting after-school educators  

ExpandEdsupports a strong after-school system that enables students to thrive and educators to grow. Google.org's $1 million investment in ExpandED Pathways Fellowship Computer Science (CS) track will empower aspiring teachers of color from underserved communities to fulfill their professional goals through a 10-month after-school teaching practicum. Ultimately, this will help increase the number of diverse CS educators in New York City and nationwide.


CS4All: Sustaining Computer Science education in public schools

Computer Science for All (CS4All) began in 2015 as an innovative public-private partnership with the NYC Department of Education to train 5,000 teachers and bring equitable CS education to all 1.1 million public school students in NYC by 2025. As the program hits its halfway point, Google.org is providing $500,000 to fund their CS Leads program facilitated by the Fund for Public Schools. This will help provide more than 200 teachers with a comprehensive leadership training program focused on equity in CS education, peer coaching and in-school leadership.


The creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of New Yorkers is one of the reasons Google calls this city home. And I’m proud that the work we do helps nurture that spirit. Whether it’s standing alongside 26 CEOs from the largest employers in New York to launch the New York Jobs CEO Council with the goal of hiring 100,000 traditionally underserved New Yorkers by 2030, committing to additional hiring efforts focused on Black+ talent in NY or developing alternative pathways into the workforce, we believe tech should be for everyone and we’re committed to making that a reality. 


Do something new with whats.new

Last year, Google Registry released .new—a domain extension that lets businesses build novel shortcuts into their products. Since then, more than 200 .new domains have come to life, providing shortcuts to common tasks within popular services like Medium, Asana, GitHub and more. With all the .new domains available, you can easily replace menus and long URLs with short and memorable links—clicking less, and getting things done faster.

To help you get the most out of the .new domains that have launched over the last few months, we’ve put together a collection of notable ones at whats.new. You can also browse all the .new shortcuts currently available by category.


Here are just a few of our favorite shortcuts:


  • The next time you need to convert a file into a PDF, try using pdf.new from Adobe Acrobat. All you need to do is drag and drop your document into their online PDF converter and watch it transform into a high-quality PDF that’s easy to share and looks great on any screen.

  • Create stand out social media posts in just a few clicks with create.new from Adobe Spark. Start from thousands of templates, choose from millions of images, icons, and stickers to add to your design, and brandify with your own logos, colors, and fonts.

  • Ready to make your own podcast? It's easy and free with Anchor, Spotify’s all-in-one podcasting platform. Go to podcast.new to record a new episode.

  • Want to start a new blog? Head to blog.new to create your WordPress.com account and join millions of bloggers. (Already have a WordPress.com website? Try post.new to draft your next blog post.)

  • Whether you’re working from home or organizing a virtual happy hour with friends, go to meet.new to launch a real-time meeting from your browser using Google Meet.  

With more than 200 (and growing) .new domains spanning uses across productivity, business services and creativity, we think you’ll find at least a few .new shortcuts you’ll want to use regularly!

Highlights from the first year of .dev

A year ago, our Google Registry team launched .dev—a top-level domain (TLD) for developers, designers, technical writers, and technology enthusiasts. This new TLD gave people the chance to register memorable domain names that can be hard to find on older domains, with a descriptive ending that’s especially relevant to them.

The .dev TLD is on the HSTS preload list, which means it’s secure for both website owners and their visitors. Placement on the HSTS preload list ensures HTTPS encryption for your entire website, which helps protect visitors against ad malware, tracking injection from ISPs, and potential spying when using open Wi-Fi networks. With so much built-in security, .dev has become the natural place for technology makers to share resources, showcase great work, and foster community.

In the last year, over 150,000 .dev domains have been registered, and we’ve seen many creative uses of the TLD. Here are just a few of the exciting examples we’ve seen.

.dev 1 year anniversary

A video with three .dev tips

Atlassian

Atlassian launched both software.dev and cicd.dev to share insights into today’s software development landscape and how software and IT professionals use CI/CD tools. Using .dev domains helped them market both sites, which have sparked conversations on social media among the developer community.

Cloudflare

Cloudflare launched workers.dev to help developers build serverless websites and applications that deploy directly onto subdomains of workers.dev. The TLD made it possible for Cloudflare to use a domain name that’s both descriptive and easy to remember. And over the last year, they’ve seen developers create handy apps like this “lazy invoice” tool.

Salesforce

Salesforce used lwc.dev to launch a site dedicated to Lightning Web Components (their open source project) where professional developers can find online documentation, copy source code for various recipes, and engage with the Lightning Web Components community.

Google Developer Relations

The Google Developer Relations team launched google.dev for developers to explore and learn about all the technologies Google has to offer. You can sign up for the waitlist for the beta version of google.dev, which lets developers create profiles and earn badges by passing technical challenges. The team sends out new invites regularly, so be sure to sign up.

Go Programming Language

Our Go Language team launched go.dev on the 10th anniversary of the open source programming language to provide Go developers a hub where they can find learning resources, including featured use cases and customer stories of other companies using Go.

Build your own .dev experience

From the start, we envisioned .dev as a home for developers and technology makers, and it’s been wonderful to see all the amazing work showcased in this domain. To celebrate .dev’s first birthday, we created a short video of some of our favorite .dev users sharing their tips for building great websites. We hope you’ll find it useful as you begin your next project, and we hope it inspires you to create your own .dev experience. Visit get.dev to learn more and get started.

13 shortcuts made possible by .new

Who doesn’t love finding a good shortcut? A year ago, G Suite created a handful of shortcuts: docs.new, sheets.new, and slides.new. You can easily pull up a new document, spreadsheet or presentation by typing those shortcuts into your address bar. 

This inspired Google Registry to release the .new domain extension as a way for people to perform online actions in one quick step. And now any company or organization can register its own .new domain to help people get things done faster, too. Here are some of our favorite shortcuts that you can use:

  1. Playlist.new: Create a new playlist to add songs on Spotify.
  2. Story.new: Write about what matters to you on Medium.
  3. Sell.new: Help people get exactly what they want through eBay.
  4. Canva.new: Create beautiful designs with your team.
  5. Reservation.new: Make an OpenTable reservation at the best restaurants near you.
  6. Word.new: With Microsoft, you can write with confidence, knowing intelligent technology can help with spelling, grammar and even stylistic writing suggestions.
  7. Webex.new: For an easy, fast, and secure way to start your personal meeting room from any browser, try this shortcut from Cisco Webex.
  8. Link.new: Instantly create trusted, powerful, recognizable links that maximize the impact of every digital initiative using Bitly.
  9. Invoice.new: Create, customize and send customer invoices directly from the Stripe Dashboard. 
  10. Api.new: Prototype and launch your ideas for new Node.js API endpoints with this shortcut from RunKit.
  11. Coda.new: Simplify your team’s work with a new doc that combines documents and spreadsheets into a single canvas.
  12. Music.new: Create personalized song artwork for OVO Sound artist releases, pre-save upcoming music, and play the latest content with a single click.
  13. Repo.new: Developing fast? Open new GitHub repositories and gists in record time.

Similar to .app, .page, and .dev, .new will be secure because all domains will be served overHTTPS connections. Through January 14, 2020, trademark owners can register their trademarked .new domains. Starting December 2, 2019, anyone can apply for a .new domain during the Limited Registration Period. If you’ve got an idea for a .new domain, you can learn more about our policies and how to register at whats.new. 


With .new, you can help people take action faster. We hope to see .new shortcuts for all the things people frequently do online. 


10 shortcuts made possible by .new

Who doesn’t love finding a good shortcut? A year ago, G Suite created a handful of shortcuts: docs.new, sheets.new, and slides.new. You can easily pull up a new document, spreadsheet or presentation by typing those shortcuts into your address bar. 

This inspired Google Registry to release the .new domain extension as a way for people to perform online actions in one quick step. And now any company or organization can register its own .new domain to help people get things done faster, too. Here are some of our favorite shortcuts that you can use:

  • Playlist.new: Create a new playlist to add songs on Spotify.

  • Story.new: Write about what matters to you on Medium.

  • Canva.new: Create beautiful designs with your team.

  • Webex.new: For an easy, fast, and secure way to start your personal meeting room from any browser, try this shortcut from Cisco Webex.

  • Link.new: Instantly create trusted, powerful, recognizable links that maximize the impact of every digital initiative using Bitly.

  • Invoice.new: Create, customize and send customer invoices directly from the Stripe Dashboard. 

  • Api.new: Prototype and launch your ideas for new Node.js API endpoints with this shortcut from RunKit.

  • Coda.new: Simplify your team’s work with a new doc that combines documents and spreadsheets into a single canvas.

  • Music.new: Create personalized song artwork for OVO Sound artist releases, pre-save upcoming music, and play the latest content with a single click.

  • Cal.new: Create a new Google Calendar event right from your browser.

Similar to .app, .page, and .dev, .new will be secure because all domains will be served overHTTPS connections. Through January 14, 2020, trademark owners can register their trademarked .new domains. Starting December 2, 2019, anyone can apply for a .new domain during the Limited Registration Period. If you’ve got an idea for a .new domain, you can learn more about our policies and how to register at whats.new. 

With .new, you can help people take action faster. We hope to see .new shortcuts for all the things people frequently do online. 


Introducing .app, a more secure home for apps on the web

Today we’re announcing .app, the newest top-level domain (TLD) from Google Registry.

A TLD is the last part of a domain name, like .com in “www.google.com” or .google in “blog.google” (the site you’re on right now). We created the .app TLD specifically for apps and app developers, with added security to help you showcase your apps to the world.

Even if you spend your days working in the world of mobile apps, you can still benefit from a home on the web. With a memorable .app domain name, it’s easy for people to find and learn more about your app. You can use your new domain as a landing page to share trustworthy download links, keep users up to date, and deep link to in-app content.

A key benefit of the .app domain is that security is built in—for you and your users. The big difference is that HTTPS is required to connect to all .app websites, helping protect against ad malware and tracking injection by ISPs, in addition to safeguarding against spying on open WiFi networks. Because .app will be the first TLD with enforced security made available for general registration, it’s helping move the web to an HTTPS-everywhere future in a big way.

Starting today at 9:00am PDT and through May 7, .app domains are available to register as part of our Early Access Program, where, for an additional fee, you can secure your desired domains ahead of general availability. And then beginning on May 8, .app domains will be available to the general public through your registrar of choice.

Just visit get.app to see who’s already on .app and choose a registrar partner to begin registering your domain. We look forward to seeing where your new .app domain takes you!