Monthly Archives: February 2016

Better scanning, more controls for Data Loss Prevention for Gmail

Last year we launched Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for Gmail, providing Google Apps Unlimited customers with another layer of protection to prevent sensitive information from being revealed to those who shouldn’t have it. Gmail DLP automatically checks all outgoing emails according to policies set by the Apps admin and prompts the appropriate action.

Today we’re excited to announce several new features for Gmail DLP:
Optical character recognition (OCR) for better attachment scanning 
Sensitive information can reside not just in text documents, but in scanned copies and images as well. With the new OCR enhancement, DLP policies can now analyze common image types, and extract text for policy evaluation. Admins have the option to enable OCR in the Admin console at the organizational-unit (OU) level for both the Content compliance and Objectionable content rules. 

Additional predefined content detectors
Our Work customers span the globe, and we are committed to providing customers in all countries with plug-and-play DLP policies. Towards this goal, we are pleased to announce the introduction of new detectors which cover personally identifiable information (PII) in several additional countries, and provide better coverage for HIPAA data as well.

More control over content detection thresholds
Our largest Work customers desire fine-grained control over DLP policies to minimize false positives, and take action commensurate with the level of perceived risk. We are introducing two new detection parameters to address this:
  • Count parameter - The count parameter allows customers to set up different DLP policies based on whether a message contains individual or bulk PII. For example, an email containing a single credit card number might be considered a low risk event, while one that contains 100 credit cards is clearly a high risk scenario. 
  • Confidence parameter - The confidence parameter lets the customer tighten or loosen detection criteria for the most commonly used detectors as per their needs. 

Check out the Help Center links below for more information on Gmail DLP and these new features. Stay tuned as we bring DLP to Google Drive later this year.

Note: Gmail DLP is available for Google Apps for Work Unlimited customers only. 

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

Rollout pace: 
Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information 
Help Center: DLP for Gmail overview
Help Center: Optical character recognition
Help Center: New predefined detectors
Help Center: New detection parameters


Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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More innovation brings more security so for today, let’s raise the bar with Gmail DLP

Posted by Gerhard Eschelbeck, VP of Security & Privacy Engineering


I’m quite excited to be speaking at the RSA Conference this week in San Francisco, joined by thousands of security professionals from around the world. If you’re attending RSA, please visit Room 2004 at 2:20 p.m. tomorrow. I’ll talk a bit about my experience in the security industry and share some of the challenges and advantages I’ve experienced protecting users and customers at Google. Like many professionals visiting the conference, I became interested in security many years ago because it was a challenging, exciting and intellectually fascinating area. Back then, very few of us could have predicted how those challenges would grow in scale and complexity. But the technology available to address those challenges has also evolved, and today I see a safer Internet within reach.

When we think about innovation at Google, most of us think about balloons delivering wireless access or driverless cars. But for many years, we've been innovating at scale with security as well. Google has a long history of accelerating innovation and facilitating the adoption of new technology — like two-step verification (2SV), Security Keys, SSL encryption and even removing spam in email. Remember when spam was going to cripple email in the 90’s? Today, spam is down to less than 0.1% for the average Gmail user — one of the earliest and finest examples of applying massive computing power and machine learning to solve a big security challenge. We believe technology can help solve more of the challenges we face.

For example, today we’re adding new features to our Data Loss Prevention solution in Gmail. For users, security should just work. Because sensitive information can reside not just in text documents, but also in scanned copies and images, DLP for Gmail now uses Optical Character Recognition. We've also introduced additional detection parameters for fine-grained policy control and offer broader coverage of HIPAA data and personally identifiable information (PII) globally.

Many of us today see how large cloud providers play an increasing role in keeping our important information secure. At Google, we’re certainly putting our shoulder to the wheel.

To learn more about Google on security, check out my recent roundtable discussion on Medium. See you tomorrow in San Francisco!

2016 Google Summer of Code mentor organizations

GSOC Roboto Lockup (1).jpg
It’s that time of year again! We are pleased to announce the mentor organizations accepted for this year’s Google Summer of Code (GSoC). Every year, we have many more great projects than we can accept — 2016 was no exception. After carefully reviewing 369 applications, we have chosen 180 open source projects, 24% of which are new to the program. Please see our new program website for a complete list of the accepted orgs.

Over the next two weeks, students interested in participating in GSoC can research each of the organizations. The student application period begins on Monday, March 14, 2016 at 19:00 UTC and ends on Friday, March 25, 2016 at 19:00 UTC.


Interested? Start by reviewing the Ideas List from each organization to learn about the organization and how you might contribute. Some of the most successful proposals have been completely new ideas submitted by students, so if you don’t see a project that appeals to you, don’t be afraid to suggest a new idea to the organization! There are contacts listed for each organization on their Ideas List — students should contact the organization directly to discuss a new proposal. We also strongly encourage all interested students to reach out to and become familiar with the organization before applying.


For more information, visit our website for a full timeline of important dates and program milestones. We also highly recommend all potential students read the student manual and the FAQ’s.


Congratulations to all of our mentor organizations! We look forward to working with all of you during Google Summer of Code 2016!

By Mary Radomile, Open Source Programs

2016 Google Summer of Code mentor organizations

GSOC Roboto Lockup (1).jpg
It’s that time of year again! We are pleased to announce the mentor organizations accepted for this year’s Google Summer of Code (GSoC). Every year, we have many more great projects than we can accept — 2016 was no exception. After carefully reviewing 369 applications, we have chosen 180 open source projects, 24% of which are new to the program. Please see our new program website for a complete list of the accepted orgs.

Over the next two weeks, students interested in participating in GSoC can research each of the organizations. The student application period begins on Monday, March 14, 2016 at 19:00 UTC and ends on Friday, March 25, 2016 at 19:00 UTC.


Interested? Start by reviewing the Ideas List from each organization to learn about the organization and how you might contribute. Some of the most successful proposals have been completely new ideas submitted by students, so if you don’t see a project that appeals to you, don’t be afraid to suggest a new idea to the organization! There are contacts listed for each organization on their Ideas List — students should contact the organization directly to discuss a new proposal. We also strongly encourage all interested students to reach out to and become familiar with the organization before applying.


For more information, visit our website for a full timeline of important dates and program milestones. We also highly recommend all potential students read the student manual and the FAQ’s.


Congratulations to all of our mentor organizations! We look forward to working with all of you during Google Summer of Code 2016!

By Mary Radomile, Open Source Programs

And the winner of the $1 Million Little Box Challenge is…CE+T Power’s Red Electrical Devils

Posted by Ross Koningstein, Engineering Director Emeritus, Google Research

In July 2014, Google and the IEEE launched the $1 Million Little Box Challenge, an open competition to design and build a small kW-scale inverter with a power density greater than 50 Watts per cubic inch while meeting a number of other specifications related to efficiency, electrical noise and thermal performance. Over 2,000 teams from across the world registered for the competition and more than 80 proposals qualified for review by IEEE Power Electronics Society and Google. In October 2015, 18 finalists were selected to bring their inverters to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for testing.
Today, Google and the IEEE are proud to announce that the grand prize winner of the $1 Million Little Box Challenge is CE+T Power’s Red Electrical Devils. The Red Electrical Devils (named after Belgium’s national soccer team) were declared the winner by a consensus of judges from Google, IEEE Power Electronics Society and NREL. Honorable mentions go to teams from Schneider Electric and Virginia Tech’s Future Energy Electronics Center.
CE+T Power’s Red Electrical Devils receive $1 Million Little Box Challenge Prize
Schneider, Virginia Tech and The Red Electrical Devils all built 2kW inverters that passed 100 hours of testing at NREL, adhered to the technical specifications of the competition, and were recognized today in a ceremony at the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit in Washington, DC. Among the 3 finalists, the Red Electric Devils’ inverter had the highest power density and smallest volume.

Impressively, the winning team exceeded the power density goal for the competition by a factor of 3, which is 10 times more compact than commercially available inverters! When we initially brainstormed technical targets for the Little Box Challenge, some of us at Google didn’t think such audacious goals could be achieved. Three teams from around the world proved decisively that it could be done.

Our takeaway: Establish a worthy goal and smart people will exceed it!

Congratulations again to CE+T Power’s Red Electrical Devils, Schneider Electric and Virginia Tech’s Future Energy Electronics and sincere thanks to our collaborators at IEEE and NREL. The finalist’s technical approach documents will be posted on the Little Box Challenge website until December 31, 2017. We hope this helps advance the state of the art and innovation in kW-scale inverters.

Chrome, the browser for business, gains improved security and support

Posted by Saswat Panigrahi, Product Manager, Chrome for Work

These days, the browser has become the go-to application in business. It enables employees to use a wide array of productivity, collaboration and business workflow applications. Chances are today, the browser is among the most critical applications users start up with their morning coffee.


Chrome has become one of the most-used business browsers; research firm Gartner expects Chrome’s enterprise usage to surge from 43% to 65% share in 2016. Customers have switched to Chrome because of its speed, simplicity and security. IT admins have become big champions of Chrome because our browser automatically updates and delivers enterprise applications seamlessly and consistently across all operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux — and of course Chrome OS). This means cost and time savings as IT can manage one secure endpoint to deliver all their users’ apps.


Today, we’re announcing new investments for Chrome, specifically for businesses: security enhancements for Windows 10, improvements to the Chrome update system for enterprises and a new 24x7 support offering for all customers, including those who aren’t using Google Apps but are running Chrome as their primary browser.

Security - Security is one of the founding principles of Chrome. Now, we’ve made the sandbox more secure by incorporating the broadest set of available protections. We’ve also introduced a new Security Panel in DevTools to make it easier for developers to troubleshoot issues with certificates and mixed content — meaning pages rendered with both HTTPS and HTTP elements — making it easier to develop and deploy secure Web applications. Finally, we've also made great progress in the fight against unwanted software, for instance, by warning users of a site’s potential risks.

Caching - Companies rely on our automatic updates every six weeks to make the Chrome browser safer and faster over time. But for an organization with thousands of users and devices, trying to pull the latest Chrome update can strain the organization’s infrastructure. The new DownloadPreference lets proxies already used by businesses cache updates automatically,  so virtually all downloads come from the company proxy and not the Internet, saving time and bandwidth.

24x7 Support - We recognize that for businesses that run on Chrome, it’s important to have the peace of mind that comes with 24x7 support from Google. We’ve been providing this for Google Apps customers, and today we’re expanding this to all customers — even those who aren’t using Google Apps. This new offering is called Chrome for Work Assist, and includes 24x7 phone and email support, with deployment assistance from Google. Chrome for Work Assist is now available in the US and Canada, with more regions launching soon. Contact us to learn more or get started.

iOS Google Mobile Ads SDK 7.7.0 – now with bitcode support!

We’ve added support for bitcode in the latest release of the iOS Google Mobile Ads SDK! The Enable Bitcode setting was introduced in Xcode 7 as one of the components of app thinning - a technique to help re-optimize your app binary in the future without having to submit a new version to the App Store.

You can change this setting for your app in the project’s Build Settings. Under the Build Options section, set Enable Bitcode to Yes. Note that if you enable bitcode, all apps and frameworks in the app bundle need to include bitcode as well.

With the new release, we’ve also made some additional changes, one of which is an added dependency for the MediaPlayer framework. You will need to link this framework to your app’s binary. If you are using CocoaPods, then running a simple pod update will do the trick.

If you have any questions regarding the new iOS SDK release, feel free to contact us through our forum.

 - , Mobile Ads Developer Relations

Bringing Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya to Life

Posted by Larry Yang, Senior Product Manager, Project Tango

Ever been lost indoors? Us too. All the time. We brought Project Tango to Mobile World Congress, and instead of just talking about augmented reality and indoor navigation, we let attendees experience these technologies for themselves... in a museum.

Most of us love museums, but they can be difficult to navigate. It can be hard to find the location of a painting, the story of the sculpture—and equally hard to tell your friends where you are. With Project Tango, the way we experience museums can completely change by making it easier to find what (and who) you’re seeking as well as showing you the story behind the art.

To demonstrate this, we invited conference attendees into the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, carrying Project Tango developer kits loaded with GuidiGO, a museum tour app, and Glympse, a location-sharing app.

With GuidiGO, attendees could view the museum’s floor plan and follow blue dots on their screens to navigate to specific pieces of art — all without relying on Wi-Fi, GPS or beacons. They could also learn more about the art by simply holding the tablet up to each work and tapping virtual tags to reveal additional information. If people lost track of their friends during their visit, they could easily share their indoor location with their friends with the Glympse app.


We loved seeing these creative applications of Project Tango and can’t wait for people to get their hands on them with the launch of Lenovo’s consumer-ready Project Tango smartphone this summer. To make your own Project Tango app, take a look at our developer documentation and stay tuned for more Project Tango news and applications.

From top dresses to Leo’s big win, Google Trends from the Oscars

As millions of people tuned in to watch the 88th Academy Awards, many also turned to the web to keep up with the action. In fact, Canada was the number one country searching for the Oscars worldwide, followed by the United States and Chile.

We took a look at search interest in across the night’s biggest moments. The award for “most-searched”goes to Leonardo DiCaprio whose acceptance speech for Best Actor was the most-searched moment of the night and most searched speech following the ceremony.
Top Searched Oscars Moments.jpg
Most Searched Acceptance Speeches.jpg
The 88th Academy Awards also featured several performances showcasing the nominees for Best Original Song. While Sam Smith took home the Oscar for "Writing's on the Wall" from Spectre, Lady Gaga’s performance for "Til It Happens to You" from The Hunting Ground was the most-searched in Canada. 

And despite not winning a statue, global search interest for Canada's The Weeknd increased by 488% following his performance.
Most searched performances.jpg
The red carpet is many people's favorite part of the show and we wanted to know which gowns caught people's attention. Afterall, Canadians tend to search for the looks they love, more than the looks that fell flat -- “best dressed” is searched 91% more on Google than “worst dressed” in Canada.

The results are in, and this year’s fashion winners are...
Most Searched Red Carpet Dresses (1).jpg
Congratulations to all the winners - both online and offline! For the latest Canadian Google Trends, check back here weekly or follow along.


Posted by Jenn Kaiser, Communications Manager, Google Canada

My Journey with Google: Marcell


There are many ways to start your journey with Google. As a university student, two great ways are AdCamp and BOLD Immersion (apply by March 1st 2016!). Take a look at Marcell’s journey with Google.
My journey with Google began as an AdCamper (a.k.a. Google AdCamp participant). This is my story: I was doing a Master’s degree in Business Development and I was looking for career opportunities that would allow me to pursue my passion in marketing and advertising. I heard about AdCamp, so I went ahead and sent in my application (not really expecting to get a spot on the program).

As part of the AdCamp application process, I submitted a sales pitch about Google’s advertising platform (AdWords) for a fictitious SMB organization. The pitch gave me an opportunity to really shine (later I learned that consultative pitching is something Googlers do regularly within SMB Sales). The next thing I know, I’m an AdCamper, exploring the Google Office in Wroclaw, Poland, with many other students from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. I can honestly say that the program was truly a unique and memorable part of my journey with Google.

Some of the greatest moments during my Adcamp experience were:
  • Getting culturally immersed: One of the coolest things about the program was the exposure we got to Google's company culture — from the one-of-a-kind workspaces, the awesome Googlers we met along the way, to trying out the great food! 
  • Learning about life in the SMB team: I learned a lot about what they do in the SMB Sales and Global Customer Experience teams’ and found out how they operate in the digital advertising landscape, through sessions on YouTube as an ad platform, and talked about the importance of mobile in today’s marketing strategy. 
  • Finding out about career opportunities: We had a whole day to learn about Google’s recruitment processes, get help with our CV’s and take part in a mock interview with a recruiter. This really helped me better understand how I could potentially become a future Googler. 
My journey continued even after the program ended…

After taking part in AdCamp, I went back to my studies and finished my degree. Having had this Google experience, I was ready to interview for a full-time role on the SMB Sales team — and it was a success!

It’s now already been more than a year since I first stepped into Google Dublin as an Associate Account Strategist for the Hungarian market, and i’ve had a lot of fun along the way. If I had to describe our team’s vision in one sentence, I’d say: that our focus is on diversity, creativity and love for our customers whilst trying to help SMBs grow and achieve their business goals, by empowering them to become Micro-Multinationals through Google’s advertising solutions.
My highlights as a strategist to-date were:
  • Helping businesses grow: I’m responsible for a portfolio of clients. In many cases, they heavily rely on my expertise to run their whole online business strategy. This is both fascinating and challenging! 
  • Developing professionally: Being curious and learning fast is so important. This is why I attend a lot of in-house trainings and look for ways to think outside-of-the-box. 
  • Taking on new projects: I’ve also worked on projects outside of my team, such as facilitating a Negotiation Course with Googlers. During this year’s AdCamp program, I was also able to share my knowledge and experiences with participating ‘AdCampers’ — when only a year prior I was an ‘AdCamper’ myself! 
Find out even more about AdCamp EMEA and apply here (Apply by March 1st 2016)!