Author Archives: Alicia Cormie

For National Parks Week, plan a trip with Google Maps

I’ve ticked a lot of National Parks off my travel bucket list this past year. As parks started to reopen, I planned outdoor trips instead of international ones. And at the end of last year, my boyfriend and I packed up our apartments to cruise around the Southwest in a borrowed camper van. Along the way, Google Maps helped us plan out our days.

In Utah, we went to some of the most searched for National Parks — like Arches National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park. We used Google Maps to scope out the most scenic driving routes and save campsites, viewpoints and trailheads. The best part? We could access everything even if we were in areas that had spotty service since we downloaded Maps to use when we were offline. This came in handy when we were trying to find a campground at Bryce Canyon — a total dead zone for our cells — and at Arches where we perfectly timed our day to catch sunset at Delicate Arch (the infamous arch on the state’s license plate). In New Mexico, we used popular times information on Google Maps to avoid the crowds — thanks to this intel it felt like we had White Sands National Park all to ourselves early on a weekday.

Saturday marks the first day of National Parks Week, which I’ve deemed as a welcomed excuse to start planning your next outdoor adventure. (I’ve been eyeing Big Bend National Park). If you’re looking for some travel inspiration, Google Maps dug into data from the past year to help get you started!

Man standing on sand dunes at White Sands National Park.

Popular times to hit the popular parks ?

The most popular time on the weekend to visit the top five National Parks is Saturday at 2:00 p.m.
The most popular time on the weekdays is similar to the weekend, between 1 to 3 p.m.
On weekdays, the most popular time to visit the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone is Tuesday.

All trends point to hiking trails ?

Google Maps searches for “hike” have increased 30% year over year
Meanwhile, Google Maps searches for “beach” have increased 27% year over year

Top 10 most searched National Parks on Google Maps ⛰️

Grand Canyon National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Yosemite National Park
Zion National Park
Joshua Tree National Park
Big Bend National Park
Sequoia National Park
Bryce Canyon National Park
Glacier National Park
Arches National Park

Top 10 most searched national forests on Google Maps ?

Angeles National Forest
Pisgah National Forest
San Bernardino National Forest
Tonto National Forest
Coconino National Forest
Sam Houston National Forest
Sequoia National Forest
Nantahala National Forest
Cleveland National Forest
Ozark National Forest

Top 10 most searched public beaches on Google Maps ?️

Will Rogers State Beach
Pacifica State Beach
Marina Beach
Seacliff State Beach
Madeira Beach Access
San Clemente State Beach
Gray Whale Cove State Beach
Manatee Public Beach
Manasota Key Beach
Blind Pass Beach

Source: Google LatLong

Rachel Malarich is planting a better future, tree by tree

Everyone has a tree story, Rachel Malarich says—and one of hers takes place on the limbs of a eucalyptus tree. Rachel and her cousins spent summers in central California climbing the 100-foot tall trees and hanging out between the waxy blue leaves—an experience she remembers as awe-inspiring.

Now, as Los Angeles first-ever City Forest Officer, Rachel’s work is shaping the tree stories that Angelenos will tell. “I want our communities to go to public spaces and feel that sense of awe,” she says. “That feeling that something was there before them, and it will be there after them...we have to bring that to our cities.”

Part of Rachel’s job is to help the City of Los Angeles reach an ambitious goal: to plant and maintain 90,000 trees by the end of 2021 and to keep planting trees at a rate of 20,000 per year after that. This goal is about more than planting trees, though: It’s about planting the seeds for social, economic and environmental equity. These trees, Rachel says, will help advance citywide sustainability and climate goals, beautify neighborhoods, improve air quality and create shade to combat rising street-level temperatures.

To make sure every tree has the most impact, Rachel and the City of Los Angeles use Tree Canopy Lab, a tool they helped build with Google that uses AI and aerial imagery to understand current tree cover density, also known as “tree canopy,” right down to street-level data. Tree inventory data, which is typically collected through on-site assessments, helps city officials know where to invest resources for maintaining, preserving and planting trees. It also helps pinpoint where new trees should be planted. In the case of LA, there was a strong correlation between a lack of tree coverage and the city's underserved communities.

With Tree Canopy Lab, Rachel and her team overlay data, such as population density and land use data, to understand what’s happening within the 500 square miles of the city and understand where new trees will have the biggest impact on a community. It helps them answer questions like: Where are highly populated residential areas with low tree coverage? Which thoroughfares that people commute along every day have no shade?

And it also helps Rachel do what she has focused her career on: creating community-led programs. After more than a decade of working at nonprofits, she’s learned that resilient communities are connected communities.

“This data helps us go beyond assumptions and see where the actual need is,” Rachel says. “And it frees me up to focus on what I know best: listening to the people of LA, local policy and urban forestry.”

After working with Google on Tree Canopy Lab, she’s found that data gives her a chance to connect with the public. She now has a tool that quickly pools together data and creates a visual to show community leaders what’s happening in specific neighborhoods, what the city is doing and why it’s important. She can also demonstrate ways communities can better manage resources they already have to achieve local goals. And that’s something she thinks every city can benefit from.

“My entrance into urban forestry was through the lens of social justice and economic inequity. For me, it’s about improving the quality of life for Angelenos,” Rachel says. “I’m excited to work with others to create that impact on a bigger level, and build toward the potential for a better environment in the future.”

And in this case, building a better future starts with one well planned tree at a time.

Source: Google LatLong

Google.org Fellows help NY State respond to the pandemic

With the help of 10 Googlers, New York State launched a web-based tool that helps connect residents to critical social services. As a result of the pandemic, millions of New Yorkers are seeking out help for daily necessities such as food, housing and COVID-related services—and many are doing so for the first time. To make it easier to find relevant services, residents simply have to answer a few questions from their phone or computer. The app is also open-sourced, so other states and civic organizations can implement it for residents.

This tool was the main project that Googlers worked on during a six-month pro bono Google.org Fellowship, making it the fifth civic entity to receive support from Google.org Fellows to date and the first working directly with a state administration. In April—during the height of New York’s COVID-19 outbreak—Google.org Fellows were tasked with helping Governor Andrew Cuomo’s COVID-19 Tech SWAT Team respond to the pandemic. Using their skills in engineering, product management and user experience research and design, they helped build the recently launched social services application in collaboration with the New York State Office of Information Technology Services (ITS) and Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA).

Image of a phone with the social services app introduction page. — To make it easier to find relevant services, residents simply have to answer a few questions from their phone or computer.

We sat down with Malika Chatlapalli, one of the Google.org Fellows, to hear more about her experience working with New York State.

What drew you to this Google.org Fellowship?

I’ve been an interaction designer out of the Google NYC office for two years, and I grew up in East Fishkill, NY. One of things I love about Google is the responsibility we feel to do the right thing, and I thought this fellowship was an opportunity to do that. With COVID-19, I wanted to do more to help—whether it was New Yorkers or people in general.

What was unique about this project for you?

When designing products, you start with the user. In this case, that meant designing for a wide range of age groups, reading levels, languages and familiarity with technology.

That’s why working closely with the state’s UX team was so invaluable. I learned so much working with them—they are experts on who New Yorkers are and what they need. For example, we learned that when exploring social services New Yorkers want to follow instructions carefully and do things right the first time around, so we experimented with a variety of different ways to phrase questions throughout the tool so they were clear and direct, while also showing empathy. Asking for help can be very personal and we wanted to respect that.

Having the opportunity to work with the UX team and test the design with actual New Yorkers was an incredibly enlightening and humbling experience.

A grid image of a video conferencing call showing the Google.org Fellows who worked on this project. — Google.org fellows worked with New York State on a number of projects, including a web-based tool that helps connect residents to critical social services.

What was it like working on these projects at the beginning of the pandemic?

It was a time of unknowns. The unemployment claims were at an all time high, more and more people were looking for social services. We wanted to jump in and solve problems that the state was facing in that moment—anything that could make people’s lives a little bit easier—but we also knew that in order for us to be successful, we needed to act as a cohesive team first. We invested time in getting to know each other and found moments to pause and reflect on the work we were doing. Despite being 100% virtual, we were able to build trust and camaraderie as a team.

What were you most proud of?

Together with the state, we built and launched a web app in three months—that rarely happens! It’s also configurable, meaning the state can easily update and customize the tool to quickly adapt to the changing needs of residents, in real time, no coding necessary. While developing the web app, we also worked with the state on a design sprint and hackathon project which helped us get a deeper understanding of the challenges New Yorkers were facing.

How did the Google.org Fellows and New York State make that happen?

The NY State team advocated for this fellowship and partnered with us—it felt like we were one team! The state truly welcomed us with open arms, allowing us to build with them and not for them. The UX team even included us in their daily standup meetings and chat rooms. We were all so proud of the work that we accomplished together, and without that close collaboration it wouldn’t have been possible.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Maab Ibrahim works each day to fight for racial justice

In her role at Google, Maab Ibrahim works to guide the company on the path toward creating a more just and equitable future. And she draws from her personal experience to guide her work.

Growing up in Richmond, Virginia, Maab reckoned with the city’s painful history and observed everyday injustices like racism and economic inequality. As the child of Black immigrants, she noticed racial inequity in her own backyard as her family and community navigated structural barriers. Today, as a grant portfolio manager for Google.org, Maab has spent the last four years working alongside nonprofit leaders to find solutions to address racial injustice—from centering community-led voices in the movement to using data to identify and analyze bias in the criminal justice system.

How do you describe your job at a dinner party?

I’m a philanthropic portfolio manager for Google.org. My core focus is to provide support, such as grant funding and technical expertise, to nonprofits that are working to advance racial justice across a number of issue areas, including criminal justice reform, education, and economic opportunity.

What inspired you to pursue racial justice work?

I draw a lot of inspiration for this work from Black and Latino communities where I grew up in Richmond, Virginia. Virginia has a deep and pained racial history. Our state welcomed the very first slave ships to America, housed the Confederacy, and was a battleground for historic civil rights cases such as Loving v. Virginia. As I learned about this history, I couldn’t help but notice the racial disparities that continue to persist in Black and Brown neighborhoods. Children in our classrooms were over-suspended and over-punished. Parents were attempting to be present in their kids’ educations, while overcoming language barriers or managing two or three jobs. Many families had a loved one behind bars due to biased policing and harsh sentencing.

Over the years, I’ve learned strategies and tools, but my personal experience continues to deeply influence my approach to the work. As one of very few black women in philanthropy, I believe in trusting and supporting community leaders who are most proximate to racial injustice.

As one of very few black women in philanthropy, I believe in trusting and supporting community leaders who are most proximate to racial injustice.

Can you describe Google.org’s approach to racial justice grantmaking and racial justice work?

We've primarily directed our grant funding to criminal justice work over the last five years, making more than $44 million in grants and giving more than 15,000 hours in pro bono services to nonprofits working in that space. Google has a deep appreciation for data science; it's a part of our DNA. So our largest grants in this space have been to nonprofits working to close data gaps across the criminal justice system. For example, we’re funding work to identify bias in policing practices and jail population trends in rural communities.

Alongside the criminal justice data work, we’re also funding community-led solutions. We take to heart the importance of centering on the dignity of marginalized communities and affirming the flourishing of Black and Brown lives. What that means in practice is funding organizations that are led by and advocating on behalf of Black or Latino communities, such as the Black Lives Matter Movement.

What have been some of the biggest challenges this year?

We saw the most recent racial justice uprising happen in the wake of COVID-19. People from all kinds of communities came out on the streets in response to the death of George Floyd and demanded change in our justice system. As a result, reforms kicked off across cities in America. But behind the mobilization, the Black community continues to feel the loss of many loved ones due to COVID-19. The pandemic has exasperated systemic inequities in healthcare and in our economic system that leave Black communities most vulnerable.

From the grantee perspective, that means organizations and their staff are dealing with two crises at one time. It's been very challenging but I’m proud that we’re able to support groups like The Satcher Health Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine that are working to address these disparities.

What keeps you motivated and positive?

Racial justice work, at its core, requires a necessary discomfort that drives progress forward. But at this moment, I’m feeling energized by the catalytic shift the U.S. is experiencing in addressing systemic anti-Black racism. I am deeply inspired by the visionary leaders that drive community-led solutions. For me, it's a great honor to be in solidarity with their work.

What advice do you have for women starting out in their career?

When you are early in your career, it can feel like there’s so much to learn from the people around you. I’d ask young women to consider just how much the world has to learn from them, too. Young people are the driving force behind social movements, the first adopters of new technologies and more willing to imagine the world differently. That perspective is invaluable to innovation and progress.

I’d ask young women to consider just how much the world has to learn from them, too.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Avni Shah wants to keep learning going for everyone

Growing up, Avni Shah’s father drove an hour and a half to work every day so she and her sister could enroll in a better school district in Alabama. She later watched her parents put away savings for years to be able to afford college tuition for their daughters. From a very young age, she came to understand the meaning and importance of a good education.

Today, as the VP of Google for Education, Avni works every day to help build tools that make a high-quality education available to everyone. That mission is especially important now as widespread school closures from the COVID-19 pandemic have challenged schools and families to quickly adjust to distance learning.

Through it all, Avni remains optimistic about the future of education and the role technology can play in shaping it. She says that over the past few months the resiliency of teachers and students alike has inspired her, and that there have been “bright spots” of positivity.

How do you explain your job at a dinner party?

My team builds tools for teachers, students, and education leaders to help improve teaching and learning at scale. One thing that’s great about working at Google is that describing my job is pretty easy, and always a great conversation starter—I get lots of feature requests (and bug reports ?) wherever I go.

The use of technology in education is especially important now. What are you most excited about?

It’s been amazing to see the role technology has played to keep learning happening, no matter what. As I look ahead to the next six to twelve months, I’m excited about working alongside teachers, education leaders and students to build tools that can really meet their needs, both now—in this ever-changing situation—and for the future.

What we’ve seen in the past few months is an unexpected acceleration towards the digitization of education and learning. As that shift continues to happen, I see an opportunity longer-term to unlock even more of the potential of technology and the role it can play in being helpful to teachers, students and families. While tech is only part of the solution and there’s still a lot of work left to do, it’s clear that technology will have a unique part in shaping the future of education.

What has surprised you the most over the past six months?

The adaptability and resiliency of everyone, especially teachers. Teachers, schools and entire governments across the world had to quickly adjust to huge changes when schools started closing, and in many cases, the shift to distance learning happened in a matter of days.

I saw it with my own daughter. Back in March, her school closed on a Thursday, and by Monday, the whole school was up and running with a full virtual curriculum. They literally went from zero to distance learning in seventy-two hours. And that story isn’t unique—we hear stories like this from our teachers and students all over the world.

What’s more is that my daughter’s class continued to adapt and adjust. I remember their first video call and hearing twenty second graders talking all at once—it was definitely a bit chaotic. But the students, teachers and administrators quickly adapted. And now my daughter is teaching me things like what online classroom etiquette looks like.

How have you and your team stayed motivated?

Over the past few months, my team started a weekly tradition called “bright spots” where we share inspiring stories about how teachers, students and families use our tools.

We’ve heard creative ways teachers turn their homes into virtual classrooms—including one teacher who used their shower as a whiteboard surface. There was also a family in New Zealand who sent a photo of a distance learning classroom they built on top of a hill so they could have access to satellite Wi-Fi; it was made out of a generator-powered farm trailer!

Who has been a strong female influence in your life?

My mom. She’s incredibly hardworking and approaches life with this calm, yet tireless, optimism. When she and my dad moved to the U.S. from Mumbai, she worked multiple jobs to help make ends meet and taught herself English by watching Nick at Nite on TV. Later on, she worked full time while she studied (and passed) the CPA exam, and she moved in to help me when my first child was born—while still working herself.

I started keeping a list of all the positive things that wouldn’t have happened if COVID wasn’t here to remind myself that there are nuggets of good. Getting to see my mom every day is definitely on the list. She lives in Alabama and I live in California, but since the pandemic, my kids video call her every day.

What advice do you have for women starting out in their careers?

Careers are not linear, and things that feel like sideways or downward movement can still be progress. Be open to opportunities that might be surprising or sound scary because that's usually where learning and growth happen.

I’ve been at Google for seventeen years and moved around the company quite a bit, working on Search, Maps, Chrome and now Google for Education. Some transitions were harder than others. For example, there was the time when I moved to Zurich, took on a new role, became a manager for the first time, and got married—all within the span of three weeks. Every time I made a transition, I had to learn about an entirely new product, industry and team, and where I could fit in. But every transition helped me get used to feeling uncomfortable and learning new things again. And, in hindsight, I can see how each of those moves was extremely valuable.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Elise Roy wants products to be accessible for all

Elise Roy has been a design thinker since she was young. When she started to lose her hearing at the age of 10, she got creative about how she could adapt her environment and tools to work for her.

As an adult, she channeled that creativity to pave the way for others with disabilities—from fighting to keep live captioning available at her college to working on the United Nations International Disability Rights Treaty during and after law school. Today, as a UX Accessibility and Inclusion Lead at Google, she helps product teams think about inclusive design because, as she puts it, “when we design for disabilities, we all benefit.”

On the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act—landmark legislation that helped protect the rights of people with disabilities—we talked with Elise about how to design better products, the power of negotiation, what her stint as a furniture maker taught her and more.

How do you explain your job at a dinner party?

I help teams look at problems and design from the perspective of people who are often the most excluded. Ultimately, that helps us make better products for everyone.

What’s the general gist of inclusive design?

Inclusive design is about looking at people with differences—whether it’s different abilities, races, cultures or sexualities—and then designing products for their experiences. Human diversity is our greatest source of innovation. When we solve for the most excluded groups, we often develop solutions that are better for everyone. Email and closed captioning are two great examples of this. Both were created to help people who were deaf; now they are both widely used by everyone.

How have your own differences molded your experience?

When I fail, I see it as an opportunity for growth and learning. This goes back to my own hearing loss that started when I was ten. At first, I failed a lot. I remember a pivotal moment when I was in fifth grade and got a 28 percent on a test. My mom sat me down, made me study, and when I took the next test I got a 98 percent. It was a critical moment for me: I learned I can fail, but I can also work hard and get back up and succeed. This past Mother’s Day I finally wrote my mom to thank her for that valuable lesson.

Human diversity is our greatest source of innovation.

You’ve worked in a lot of different roles—from law to tech to furniture making. What important lessons have you learned along the way?

As a lawyer, I learned a lot about negotiation and stopped seeing it as a “win or lose” outcome. Negotiation is about listening to people’s needs and understanding them and finding the common ground. And finding that common ground is wildly important when it comes to product development and inclusion.

You haven’t always worked in law or tech. What about the time you spent repurposing home furnishings for an architectural salvage company?

I spent about two years as a furniture fabricator doing woodworking and metalworking. With each piece of furniture, you’d get to see product development through the ages and understand what parts of the design worked and what parts didn’t. It was a good lesson in building things that stand the test of time. I’m always asking myself how we can build that timeliness into our products at Google.

What’s something you want people to know about inclusive design?

There is immense business value in inclusive design. Too often people think that designing for excluded populations is simply “doing good”. Yet designing for disability has brought huge value to products, to business and to everyone. It’s one of our most valuable product design tools.

If we had designed products from the perspective of excluded populations to begin with, I think we would have been better suited to handle all of the changes and disruptions from COVID. The world had to quickly figure out how to get things done virtually and how to adapt to the fact that we were at risk of getting seriously ill. Yet a lot of the needs that we all suddenly experienced due to COVID were needs people with disabilities had experienced for years. If we had tried to address these then, we would have been able to respond and adapt to the new COVID reality a lot quicker.

Source: The Official Google Blog

100 things we announced at I/O ‘18

That’s a wrap! After a bustling three days at Google I/O, we have a lot to look back on and a lot to look forward to, from helpful features made possible with AI to updates that help you develop a sense of digital wellbeing. Here are 100 of our Google I/O announcements, in no particular order—because we don’t play favorites. ?

1. Hey Google, you sound great today! You can now choose from six new voices for your Google Assistant.
2. There will even be some familiar voices later this year, with John Legend lending his melodic tones to the Assistant.
3. The Assistant is becoming more conversational. With AI and WaveNet technology, we can better mimic the subtleties of the human voice—the pitch, pace and, um, the pauses.
4. Continued Conversation lets you have a natural back-and-forth conversation without repeating “Hey Google” for each follow-up request. And the Google Assistant will be able to understand when you’re talking to it versus someone else, and respond accordingly.
5. We’re rolling out Multiple Actions so the Google Assistant can understand more complex queries like: “What’s the weather like in New York and in Austin?”
6. Custom Routines allow you to create your own Routine, and start it with a phrase that feels best for you. For example, you can create a Custom Routine for family dinner, and kick it off by saying "Hey Google, dinner's ready" and the Assistant can turn on your favorite music, turn off the TV, and broadcast “dinner time!” to everyone in the house.
7. Soon you’ll be able to schedule Routines for a specific day or time using the Assistant app or through the Google Clock app for Android.
8. Families have listened to over 130,000 hours of children’s stories on the Assistant in the last two months alone.
9. Later this year we’ll introduce Pretty Please so the Assistant can understand and encourage polite conversation from your little ones.
10. Smart Display devices will be available this summer, bringing the simplicity of voice and the Google Assistant together with a rich visual experience.
11. We redesigned the Assistant experience on the phone. The Assistant will give you a quick snapshot of your day, with suggestions based on the time of day, location and recent interactions with the Assistant.
12. Bon appetit! A new food pick-up and delivery experience for the Google Assistant app will be available later this year.
13. Keep your eyes on the road—the Assistant is coming to navigation in Google Maps with a low visual profile. You can keep your hands on the wheel while sending text messages, playing music and more.
14.Google Duplex is a new capability we will be testing this summer within the Google Assistant to you help you make reservations, schedule appointments, and get holiday hours from businesses. Just provide the date and time, and your Assistant will call the business to coordinate for you.
15.The Google Assistant will be available in 80 countries by the end of the year.
16. We’re also bringing Google Home and Google Home Mini to seven more countries later this year: Spain, Mexico, Korea, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

17.Soon you’ll see Smart Compose in Gmail, a new feature powered by AI, that helps you save you time by cutting back on repetitive writing, while reducing the chance of spelling and grammatical errors in your emails.
18. ML Kit brings the breadth of Google’s machine learning technology to app developers, including on-device APIs for text recognition, face detection, image labeling and more. It’s available in one mobile SDK, accessible through Firebase, and works on both Android and iOS.
19.Our third-generation TPUs (Tensor Processing Units) are liquid-cooled and much more powerful than the previous generation, allowing us to train and run models faster so more products can be enhanced with AI.
20. We published results in a Nature Research journal showing that our AI model can predict medical events, helping doctors spot problems before they happen.
21. AI is making it easier for Waymo’s vehicles to drive in different environments, whether it’s the snowy streets of Michigan, foggy hills of San Francisco or rainy roads of Kirkland. With these improvements, we’re moving closer to our goal of bringing self-driving technology to everyone, everywhere.

22.We unveiled a beta version of Android P, focused on intelligence, simplicity and digital wellbeing.
23. We partnered with DeepMind to build Adaptive Battery, which prioritizes battery power for the apps and services you use most.
24. Adaptive Brightness in Android P learns how you like to set the brightness based on your surroundings, and automatically updates it to conserve energy.
25. App Actions help you get to your next task quickly by predicting what action you’ll take next. So if you connect your headphones to your device, Android will suggest an action to resume your favorite Spotify playlist.
26. Actions will also show up throughout your Android phone in places like the Launcher, Smart Text Selection, the Play Store, the Google Search app and the Assistant.
27. Slices makes your smartphone even smarter by showing parts of apps right when you need them most. Say for example you search for “Lyft” in Google Search on your phone—you can see an interactive Slice that gives you the price and time for a trip to work, and you can quickly order the ride.
28. A new enterprise work profile visually separates your work apps. Tap on the work tab to see work apps all in one place, and turn them off with a simple toggle when you get off work.
29. Less is more! Swipe up on the home button in Android P to see a newly designed Overview, with full-screen previews of recently used apps. Simply tap once to jump back into any app.
30. If you’re constantly switching between apps, we’ve got good news for you. Smart Text Selection (which recognizes the meaning of the text you’re selecting and suggests relevant actions) now works in Overview, making it easier to perform the action you want.
31.Android P also brings a redesigned Quick Settings, a better way to take and edit screenshots (say goodbye to the vulcan grip that was required before), simplified volume controls, an easier way to manage notifications and more.
32. Technology should help you with your life, not distract you from it. Android P comes with digital wellbeing features built into the platform.
33.Dashboard gives you a snapshot on how you’re spending time on your phone. It includes information about how long you’ve spent in apps, how many times you unlocked your phone and how many notifications you’ve received.
34.You can take more control over how you engage with your phone. App Timer lets you set time limits on apps, and when you get close to your time limit Android will nudge you that it is time to do something else.
35. Do Not Disturb (DND) mode has more oomph. Not only does it silence phone calls and texts, but it also hides visual disruptions like notifications that pop up on your display.
36. We created a gesture to help you focus on being present: If you turn your phone over on the table, it automatically enters DND.
37. With a new API, you can automatically set your status on messaging apps to “away” when DND is turned on.
38.Fall asleep a little easier with Wind Down. Set a bedtime and your phone will automatically switch to Night Light mode and fade to grayscale to eliminate distractions.
39.Android P is packed with security and privacy improvements updated security protocols, encrypted backups, protected confirmations and more.
40.Thanks to work on Project Treble, an effort we introduced last year to make OS upgrades easier for partners, Android P Beta is available on partner devices including Sony Xperia XZ2, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S, Nokia 7 Plus, Oppo R15 Pro, Vivo X21, OnePlus 6, and Essential PH‑1, in addition to Pixel and Pixel 2.

41. Say hello to the JBL LINK BAR. We worked with Harman to launch this hybrid device that delivers a full Google Assistant speaker and Android TV experience.
42. We released a limited edition Android TV dongle device, the ADT-2, for developers to create more with Android TV.
43. Android Auto is now working with more than 50 OEMs to support more than 400 cars and aftermarket stereos.
44. Volvo’s next-gen infotainment system powered by Android will integrate with Google apps, including Maps, Assistant and Play Store.
45. Watch out! You can get more done from your watch with new features from the Google Assistant on Wear OS by Google.
46. Smart suggestions from the Google Assistant on Wear OS by Google let you continue conversations directly from your watch. Choose from contextually relevant follow-up questions or responses.
47. Now you can choose to hear answers from your watch speaker or Bluetooth headphones. Just ask Google Assistant on your watch “tell me about my day.”
48. Actions will be available on all Wear OS by Google watches, so you can use your voice to do tasks like preheat your LG oven while you’re unloading your groceries or ask Bay Trains when the next train is leaving. And we’re working with developers and partners to add more Actions and functionalities.

49. We’ve mapped more than 21 million miles across 220 countries, put hundreds of millions of businesses on the map, and provided access to more than 1 billion people around the world.
50.Google Maps is becoming more assistive and personal. A redesigned Explore tab features everything you need to know about dining, events and activity options in whatever area you’re interested in.
51. Top lists give you information from local experts, Google’s algorithms and trusted publishers so you can see everything that's new and interesting—like the most essential brunches or cheap eats nearby.
52. New features help you easily make plans as a group. You can create a shortlist of places within the app and share it with friends across any platform, so you can quickly vote and decide on a place to go.
53. Your "match" helps you see the world through your lens, suggesting how likely you are to enjoy a food or drink spot based on your preferences.
54. Updated walking directions help you get oriented on your walking journey more quickly and navigate the world on foot with more confidence. So when you emerge out of a subway or reach a crossing with more than four streets, you’ll know which way to go.

55. Suggested actions, powered by machine learning, will start to show up on your photos right as you view them—giving you the option to brighten, share, rotate or archive a picture. Another action on the horizon is the ability to quickly export photos of documents into PDFs.
56. New color pop creations leave the subject of your photo in color while setting the background to black and white.
57. We’re also working on the ability for you to change black-and-white photos into color in just a tap.
58. We announced the Google Photos partner program, giving developers the tools to build smarter, faster and more helpful photo and video experiences in their products, so you can interact with your photos across more apps and devices.

59. The updatedGoogle News uses a new set of AI techniques to find and organize quality reporting and diverse information from around the web, in real time, and organize it into storylines so you can make sense of what’s happening from the world stage to your own backyard.
60. The “For You” tab makes it easy to keep up to date on what you care about, starting with a “Daily Briefing” of five stories that Google has organized for you—a mix of the most important headlines, local news and the latest on your interests.
61.With Full Coverage, you can deep dive on a story with one click. This section is not personalized—everyone will see the same content including related articles, timelines, opinion and analysis pieces, video, timeline and the ability to see what the impact or reaction has been in real time.
62. The separate Headlines section, also unpersonalized, lets you stay fully informed across a broad spectrum of news, like world news, business, science, sports, entertainment and more.
63. Subscribing to your favorite publishers right in the Google News app is super simple using Subscribe with Google—no forms, new passwords or credit cards—and you can access your subscriptions anywhere you’re logged in across Google and the web.

64. Updates to Google Lens help you get answers to the world around you. With smart text, you can copy and paste text from the real world—like recipes or business cards—to your phone.
65. With style match, if an outfit or a home decor item catches your eye, you can open Lens and not only get info on that specific item (like reviews), but also see similar items.
66.Lens now uses real-time identification so you’ll be able to browse the world around you just by pointing your camera. It’s able to give you information quickly and anchor it to the things you see.
67. Use Lens directly in the camera app on supported devices from the following OEMs: LGE, Motorola, Xiaomi, Sony Mobile, HMD/Nokia, Transsion, TCL, OnePlus, BQ, Asus—and of course the Google Pixel.
68. Lens is coming to more languages, including French, Italian, German, Spanish and Portuguese.
69. Tour Creator lets anyone with a story to tell, like teachers or students, easily make a VR tour using imagery from Google Street View or their own 360 photos.
70.With Sceneform, Java developers can now build immersive, 3D apps without having to learn complicated APIs. They can use it to build AR apps from scratch as well as add AR features to existing ones.
71. We’ve rolled out ARCore’s Cloud Anchor API across Android and iOS to help developers build more collaborative and immersive augmented reality apps. Cloud Anchors makes it possible to create collaborative AR experiences, like redecorating your home, playing games and painting a community mural—all together with your friends.
72. ARCore now features Vertical Plane Detection which means you can place AR objects on more surfaces, like textured walls. Now you can do things like view artwork above your mantlepiece before buying it.
73. Thanks to a capability called Augmented Images, you’ll be able to bring images to life just by pointing your phone at them—this works on QR codes, AR markers and static image targets (like maps, products in a store, logos, photos or movie posters).

74. We launched updates to the YouTube mobile app that will help everyone develop their own sense of digital wellbeing. The Take a Break reminder lets you set a reminder to (you guessed it!) take a break while watching videos after a specified amount of time.
75. You can schedule specific times each day to silence notification sounds and vibrations that are you sent to your phone from the YouTube app.
76. You can also opt in to a scheduled notification digest that combines all of the daily push notifications from the YouTube app into a single, combined notification.
77. Soon you’ll have access to a time watched profile to give you a better understanding of the time you spend on YouTube.

78. Lookout, a new Android app, gives people who are blind or visually impaired auditory cues as they encounter objects, text and people around them.
79. We’re introducing the ability to type in Morse code in Gboard beta for Android. We partnered with developer Tania Finlayson, an expert in Morse code assistive technology, to build this feature.

80. After launching in beta at Game Developers Conference, Google Play Instant is now open to all game developers.
81.Updated Google Play Console features help you improve your app’s performance and grow your business. These include improvements to the dashboard statistics, Android vitals, pre-launch report, acquisition report and subscriptions dashboard.
82. Android Jetpack is a new set of components, tools and architectural guidance that makes it quicker and easier for developers to build great Android apps.
83. Android KTX, launching as part of Android Jetpack, optimizes the Kotlin developer experience.
84. Android App Bundle, a new format for publishing Android apps, helps developers deliver great experiences in smaller app sizes and optimize apps for the wide variety of Android devices and form factors available.
85.The latest canary release of Android Studio 3.2 focuses on supporting the Android P Developer Preview, Android App Bundle and Android Jetpack, plus more features to help you develop fast and easily.
86.We added Dynamic Delivery so your users download only the code and resources they need to run your app, reducing download times and saving space on their devices.
87.With Android Things 1.0, developers can build and ship commercial IoT products using the Android Things platform.
88.The latest improvements to Performance Monitoring on Firebase help you easily monitor app performance issues and identify the parts of your app that stutter or freeze.
89. In the coming months, we're expanding Firebase Test Lab to include iOS to help get your app into a high-quality state—across both Android and iOS—before you even release it.
90. We shipped Flutter Beta 3, the latest version of our mobile app SDK for creating high-quality, native user experiences on iOS and Android..
91. We launched an early preview of the Android extension libraries (AndroidX) which represents a new era for the Support Library.
92. You can now run Linux apps on your Chromebooks (starting with a preview on the Google Pixelbook), so you can use your favorite tools and familiar commands with the speed, simplicity and security of Chrome OS.
93. Material Theming, part of the latest update to Material Design, lets developers systematically express a unique style across their product more consistently, so they don’t have to choose between building beautiful and building fast. We also redesigned Material.io.
94. We introduced three Material tools to streamline workflow and address common pain points across design and development: Material Theme Editor, a control panel that lets you apply global style changes to components across your design; Gallery, a platform for sharing, reviewing and commenting on design iterations; and Material Icons in five different themes.
95. With open-source Material Components, you can customize key aspects of an app’s design, including color, shape, and type themes.

96. We’ll launch a beta that allows developers to display relevant content from their apps—such as a product catalog for a shopping app—within ads, giving users more helpful information before they download an app.
97. We started early testing to make Google Play Instant compatible with AdWords, so game developers can use Universal App campaigns to reach potential users and let them try out games directly from ads.
98. Developers using ads to grow their user bases will soon have a more complete picture with view through conversion (VTC) reporting, providing more insight into ad impressions and conversions.
99. With rewarded reporting to AdMob, developers can understand and fine-tune the performance of their rewarded ads--ads that let users opt in to view ads in exchange for in-app incentives or digital goods, such as an extra life in a game or 15 minutes of ad-free music streaming.
100. Developers who sell ad placements in their app can now more easily report data back to advertisers with the integration of IAB Tech Lab’s Open Measurement SDK.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Year in Search: The most fantastic fads of 2017

Here today, gone tomorrow. Our annual Year in Search is always a fun look back at the fads that captured our fancy and then fizzled out fast. See what this year’s biggest crazes were, through the lens of Google Search:

Unicorn everything

The unofficial mascot of 2017 was the unicorn—the magical creature that had the internet abuzz. While we may have reached peak Unicorn with Starbucks’ Unicorn Frappuccino, the craze didn’t stop there. People gave a unicorn twist to all kinds of foods and searched for unicorn cake, unicorn hot chocolate, unicorn cheesecake and unicorn lemonade. While this colorful trend spanned the globe, the most searches came from the cities of San Francisco, New York, London and Bengaluru. Those who jumped on the unicorn food train were likely responsible for making “How many calories are in a Unicorn Frappuccino?” the number one trending calorie-related query.

Slimy searches

Slime also had a very big year: “How to make slime?” was the number one globally trending “how to make” question of 2017. We wanted to know how to make slime of all types: fluffy, butter, stretchy, jiggly, cloud, clear and glow-in-the-dark. But as our slimy obsession grew, so did its mess. “How to get slime out of carpet?” made its way to one of the 100 globally trending “How to” questions of the year.

The dog days aren’t over

While unicorns and slime may be have had their five minutes of fame, some internet loves last forever—like our collective adoration of cute creatures. This year’s most searched celebrity animal was April, the mama giraffe that gained worldwide fame after a live video stream of her pregnancy. April’s moment in the spotlight had the question “How long are giraffes pregnant for?” trending in Alaska. Next up in top-searched celebrity animals was Fiona, the premature baby hippo, followed by Marnie, the Instagram-famous senior rescue dog.

Meme, myself and I

From a dancing hot dog to a distracted boyfriend, the viral images that graced our feeds brought comedic relief, heavy doses of sarcasm and unending creativity to the internet. According to search data, the five most trending memes of 2017 were: “Cash Me Outside,” “United Airlines,” “Elf on the Shelf,” “What in Tarnation?” and “Mocking SpongeBob” as people sought to get in on the joke.

Say what?

It’s not just memes—the internet has a language all its own that can leave people asking “huh?”. Thankfully, the internet is also a helpful tool to quickly decode the latest slang. Trending acronyms we had to look up this year included WCW (woman crush wednesday), TFW (that feeling when), STG (swear to God), GOAT (greatest of all time), and OFC (of course). And from “what does despacito mean?” to “what does bodak yellow mean?” to “What does bibia be ye ye mean?”, we searched for the meanings of popular songs—then got back to the dance floor.

And those are the wacky, weird and unexpected searches of 2017. Who knows what 2018 will bring? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Source: Search

Year in Search: The most fantastic fads of 2017

Unicorn everything

Slimy searches

The dog days aren’t over

Meme, myself and I

Say what?

And those are the wacky, weird and unexpected searches of 2017. Who knows what 2018 will bring? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Source: The Official Google Blog

Year in Search: To infinity and beyond

The solar system had its shining moment this year, according to our annual Year in Search. From questions about the solar eclipse to the end of the Cassini spacecraft’s exploration of Saturn, the galaxy turned to Google Search for answers to out-of-this-world questions. Here’s a look at some of the trending searches about space in 2017:

Steal my sunshine

In August, a total solar eclipse crossed North America for the first time in over a century. The awe-inspiring event spurred a spike in eclipse-related questions, like “how long will the eclipse last?” and “how much of the eclipse will I see?” Safety was also top of mind: Beforehand, searches for “how to make solar eclipse glasses” and “how long you can look at the sun” were trending. Despite the preparation, the top post-eclipse queries were related to “eclipse eye damage”—yikes!

Totality hits

Eclipse-viewing experiences need a proper soundtrack. Leading up to the big day, the world searched for songs to set the mood. According to search data, these are the top trending tunes that made the cut:

1. “Black Hole Sun” - Soundgarden

2. “Moonshadow” - Cat Stevens

3. “Ain’t No Sunshine” - Bill Withers

4. “Bad Moon Rising” - CCR

5. “Total Eclipse of the Heart” - Bonnie Tyler

Galaxies far, far away

Search interest extended beyond Earth. After two decades of exploring the solar system, NASA's Cassini spacecraft ended its journey this year, piquing interest in space exploration. Searches asking “how many people are in space?” and how far away Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are from Earth climbed to an all-time high. And NASA’s search for habitable exoplanets (planets beyond our solar system) had the world asking “How many exoplanets have been discovered?” 10 times more in 2017 than 2016.

Last year we searched on Google for the answers to our most universal questions. As we rocket into 2018, who knows what we’ll search for next? ?