Belonging at Google in Europe, the Middle East and Africa

Building for everyone requires vision, and constant revision. Every product we create requires continually trying new things, examining data and learning from both our successes and failures to do better every day. Our work on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is no different. Google first published its Diversity Annual Report in 2014 and since then we’ve built on what we’ve learned to increasingly make Google a place that is truly for everyone. Last year, for the first time, the data in the report was broken down across Google’s business regions. With this year’s report we now have the opportunity to report on progress for the business region that encompasses Europe, the Middle East and Africa which we call EMEA.

I’ve led Google’s DEI programs in EMEA since 2019. I’m often asked what DEI looks like in such a diverse region. How can one approach work from Paris to Lagos and from Milan to Tel Aviv? It’s not simple, but we are committed to finding ways to make progress. Each country has different rules governing what data we can collect and what policies are permissible. Our DEI data isn’t perfect, but it’s essential for us to measure our progress as it helps keep us honest about where we are at and where we want to be.

Representation of women in EMEA

The data shows that we have increased the overall representation of women in our workforce from 32.7% to 33.8%. That might sound small, but in an organization the size of Google in EMEA (over 25,000 employees and interns) this represents a significant shift.

We continue to make progress in the hiring of women in EMEA with an overall increase of 14%. Specifically, women made up 28% of our tech hires, 49.2% of our non-tech hires and 47.1% of our Leadership hires. This is an increase year on year of 27% for non-tech and 64% for leadership hires with tech hires staying the same.

Our focus on increasing representation of women in leadership roles across EMEA is showing promising results. We saw a significant gain of 10% in the representation of women in leadership roles which now stands at 29.7%. It’s good to see progress, but there is more to do here.

We know efforts to develop talent from under-represented groups need to start early. We have amplified our efforts to support gender equity in a number of countries in Africa, sponsoring and providing content for the Our Girls, Our Future conference for young women interested in the tech industry. Across Sub-Saharan Africa, we partnered with the Graca Machel Trust to provide digital skills training for more than 5,000 women entrepreneurs.

We also grew Mind the Gap, an initiative we started in Israel in 2008 that encourages women and girls to pursue STEM careers. Mind the Gap transitioned to a virtual platform at the beginning of the pandemic. In 2021, the program reached more than 60,000 students in Israel and expanded to Romania and Ghana.

Racial equity in EMEA

Last year, for the first time, we were able to report race data for our business region in the Diversity Annual Report, thanks to almost three quarters of Googlers in EMEA voluntarily providing this information.

We see White+* continue to account for the highest representation in EMEA (78.1% versus 80.4% last year). Representation of Asian+* Googlers shows the largest increase (from 10.9% to 12.1%), followed by MENA+* (from 7.3% to 7.8%), Black+* (from 2.8% to 3.2%), Latinx+ (from 3.8% to 3.9%) and Indigenous+ (no change at 0.3%).

Where we need to make better progress is in the speed at which things are changing. For example, there has been an increase in representation of MENA+ leaders (from 4.5% to 5.8%) and an increase in representation of Black+ leaders (from 3.3% to 3.8%) across EMEA - but we need to see more progress here. And representation for all racial categories except Black+ and White+ are lower in leadership than in the overall population.

Growing leadership is one of the key planks of our racial equity plans in EMEA. Here’s how we’re focusing our efforts:

  • In recruiting: In 2021, we set an aspiration to double the number of Black+ directors by 2023. Additionally, we aim to drive Black+ representation at all levels across our talent engagement, outreach initiatives and inclusive hiring commitments.
  • Baseline data: Where legally permissible, we have started to collect application data to help understand the representation of our candidates.
  • Nurturing talent: We relaunched Elevate+, a six-month-long EMEA specific program that offers one-on-one mentorship and coaching to Black+ employees. To date, nearly 200 Googlers have participated in this program.
  • Educating majority groups: We continue to engage Googlers through comprehensive anti-racism and racial equity education, such as trainings and our speaker series on racial justice. We also have a thriving community of allyship groups across EMEA.

It’s not just about supporting racial equity in our workforce — it’s also important to support the wider community. Black founders in EMEA received $63 million in ‘follow-on’ funding after they participated in our Black Founders Fund, with 95% of participants reporting a positive impact on their startup’s ability to fundraise. We announced a second fund earlier this year.

Disability in EMEA

Our recruiting teams and local HR teams work closely with our Disability Alliance group to progress our commitments to communities with disabilities, ensuring that our hiring process is accessible and our culture and managers are prepared to support and lead Googlers with disabilities.

Our talent engagement team in EMEA hosted its first ever Disability Conference (DisCo for short) for nearly 2000 students, new graduates and industry professionals with disabilities. The conference created a space for people with disabilities and allies to connect and engage with each other and Google.

We’re also fostering new connections with disability communities around the globe. Last year, our London, Dublin, Munich, Zurich, Wroclaw and Nairobi offices celebrated #PurpleLightUp, a global campaign that celebrates every employee with a disability around the world. Leaders from each office also held conversations with our employee resource group (ERG) for Googlers with disabilities.

LGBTQ+ representation in EMEA

We have incredibly active Pride and Trans employee resource groups at Google. These groups play a critical role in promoting belonging and inclusion within the LGBTQ+ community - from creating thoughtful programming for Trans Awareness week to leading Pride events activations across 26 countries, from Poland to South Africa.

Google is also a founding member of We Are Open, an alliance of businesses and other organizations in Hungary that promotes diversity and inclusion at the workplace, focusing on LGBTQ+ inclusion. In line with Google’s vision to be helpful for all, including our LGBTQ+ communities and its allies, we were excited to partner with Open for Business in creating a report on LGBTQ+ inclusion in Central and Eastern Europe that was released last year.

In addition, to aid small business recovery during the pandemic, we launched a global campaign to help support and celebrate LGBTQ+ friendly spaces - from a LGBTQ+ bookstore in Sweden, to Rainbow Square in Copenhagen. Google also officially supported the Ja Für Alle campaign in the referendum for Equal Marriage rights in Switzerland.

In conclusion

It’s up to every one of us to contribute to building a more inclusive, equitable, and representative workplace, region and world where everyone feels they belong. We have a responsibility to relentlessly represent and support the rich diversity of talent in our region and to make Google a place where everyone can thrive. This work is not a one-off effort. It requires thoughtful and committed, ongoing systemic action. Only by committing to doing this work together can we make meaningful and long lasting change.

If you’d like to find out more, please take a look at this year’s Diversity Annual Report.

Protecting Android users from 0-Day attacks

To protect our users, Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) routinely hunts for 0-day vulnerabilities exploited in-the-wild. In 2021, we reported nine 0-days affecting Chrome, Android, Apple and Microsoft, leading to patches to protect users from these attacks.

This blog is a follow up to our July 2021 post on four 0-day vulnerabilities we discovered in 2021, and details campaigns targeting Android users with five distinct 0-day vulnerabilities:

We assess with high confidence that these exploits were packaged by a single commercial surveillance company, Cytrox, and sold to different government-backed actors who used them in at least the three campaigns discussed below. Consistent with findings from CitizenLab, we assess government-backed actors purchasing these exploits are located (at least) in Egypt, Armenia, Greece, Madagascar, Côte d’Ivoire, Serbia, Spain and Indonesia.

The 0-day exploits were used alongside n-day exploits as the developers took advantage of the time difference between when some critical bugs were patched but not flagged as security issues and when these patches were fully deployed across the Android ecosystem. Our findings underscore the extent to which commercial surveillance vendors have proliferated capabilities historically only used by governments with the technical expertise to develop and operationalize exploits.

Seven of the nine 0-days TAG discovered in 2021 fall into this category: developed by commercial providers and sold to and used by government-backed actors. TAG is actively tracking more than 30 vendors with varying levels of sophistication and public exposure selling exploits or surveillance capabilities to government-backed actors.

Campaign Deep Dives

All three campaigns delivered one-time links mimicking URL shortener services to the targeted Android users via email. The campaigns were limited — in each case, we assess the number of targets was in the tens of users. Once clicked, the link redirected the target to an attacker-owned domain that delivered the exploits before redirecting the browser to a legitimate website. If the link was not active, the user was redirected directly to a legitimate website. We've seen this technique used against journalists and other unidentified targets, and alerted those users when possible.

We assess that these campaigns delivered ALIEN, a simple Android malware in charge of loading PREDATOR, an Android implant described by CitizenLab in December 2021. ALIEN lives inside multiple privileged processes and receives commands from PREDATOR over IPC. These commands include recording audio, adding CA certificates, and hiding apps.

Campaign #1 - redirecting to SBrowser from Chrome (CVE-2021-38000)

The first campaign, detected in August 2021, used Chrome on a Samsung Galaxy S21 and the web server immediately replied with a HTTP redirect (302) pointing to the following intent URL. This URL abused a logic flaw and forced Chrome to load another URL in the Samsung Browser without user interaction or warnings.

We did not capture the subsequent stages, but assess the attackers did not have exploits for the current version of Chrome (91.0.4472) at that time, but instead used n-day exploits targeting Samsung Browser, which was running an older and vulnerable version of Chromium.

We assess with high confidence this vulnerability was sold by an exploit broker and probably abused by more than one surveillance vendor.

More technical details about this vulnerability are available in this RCA by Maddie Stone.

hash

Related IOCs

  • s.bit-li[.]com - landing page
  • getupdatesnow[.]xyz - exploit delivery server

Campaign #2 - Chrome sandbox escape (CVE-2021-37973, CVE-2021-37976)

In September 2021, TAG detected a campaign where the exploit chain was delivered to a fully up-to-date Samsung Galaxy S10 running the latest version of Chrome. We recovered the exploit used to escape the Chrome Sandbox, but not the initial RCE exploit.

The sandbox escape was loaded directly as an ELF binary embedding libchrome.so and a custom libmojo_bridge.so was used to ease the communication with the Mojo IPCs. This means the renderer exploit did not enable MojoJS bindings like we often see in public exploits.

Analysis of the exploit identified two different vulnerabilities in Chrome:

  • CVE-2021-37973: A use-after-free in the handling of Portals API and Fenced subframes.
  • CVE-2021-37976: An information leak in memory_instrumentation.mojom.Coordinator where Global Memory Dumps can be acquired for privileged processes. These dumps include sensitive information (addresses) which can be used for ASLR bypass.

After escaping the sandbox, the exploit downloaded another exploit in /data/data/com.android.chrome/p.so to elevate privileges and install the implant. We haven’t retrieved a copy of the exploit.

Related IOCs

  • shorten[.]fi - landing page
  • contents-domain[.]com - exploit delivery and C2 server

Campaign #3 - Full Android 0-day exploit chain (CVE-2021-38003, CVE-2021-1048)

In October 2021, we detected a full chain exploit from an up-to-date Samsung phone running the latest version of Chrome.

The chain included two 0-day exploits:

  • CVE-2021-38003: A Chrome renderer 0-day in JSON.stringify allowing the attacker to leak TheHole value and fully compromise the renderer.
  • CVE-2021-1048: Unlike the previous campaign, the sandbox escape used a Linux kernel bug in the epoll() system call. This system call is reachable from the BPF sandbox and allows the attacker to escape the sandbox and compromise the system by injecting code into privileged processes. More information can be found in this RCA by Jann Horn.

Of note, CVE-2021-1048 was fixed in the Linux kernel in September 2020, over a year before this campaign. The commit was not flagged as a security issue and therefore the patch was not backported in most Android kernels. At the time of the exploit, all Samsung kernels were vulnerable; LTS kernels running on Pixel phones were recent enough and included the fix for this bug. Unfortunately, this is not the first time we have seen this happen with exploits in the wild; the 2019 Bad Binder vulnerability is another example. In both cases, the fix was not flagged as a security issue and thus not backported to all (or any) Android kernels. Attackers are actively looking for and profiting from such slowly-fixed vulnerabilities.

sample image

Related IOCs

  • shorten[.]fi - landing page
  • redirecting[.]page - exploit delivery and C2 server
  • 8e4edb1e07ebb86784f65dccb14ab71dfd72f2be1203765b85461e65b7ed69c6 - ALIEN

Conclusion

We’d be remiss if we did not acknowledge the quick response and patching of these vulnerabilities by Google’s Chrome and Android teams. We would also like to thank Project Zero for their technical assistance in helping analyze these bugs. TAG continues to track more than 30 vendors with varying levels of sophistication and public exposure selling exploits or surveillance capabilities to government-backed actors. We remain committed to updating the community as we uncover these campaigns.

Tackling the harmful practices of the commercial surveillance industry will require a robust, comprehensive approach that includes cooperation among threat intelligence teams, network defenders, academic researchers and technology platforms. We look forward to continuing our work in this space and advancing the safety and security of our users around the world.

Why this Pixel engineer chose Google Taiwan

Welcome to the latest edition of “My Path to Google,” where we talk to Googlers, interns, apprentices and alumni about how they got to Google, what their roles are like and even some tips on how to prepare for interviews.

Today’s post is all about Gordon Kuo, a Taiwan-based engineer on the Pixel Mobile Wireless Team. He shares what makes Google Taiwan a unique place for engineers to work and advice for anyone interested in applying to Google.

What’s your role at Google?

I’m an engineering lead on the Pixel Mobile Wireless team. Our goal is to help connect people across the world with Google Pixel phones. We solve hardware and software challenges and work with different teams to improve functionality and performance. We talk about everything from design and bug fixes to performance optimization, which makes every day feel different. I love that no matter what we’re working on, it’s always interesting and helpful.

How did you land in your current role?

After completing my PhD in Computer Networking, I started my career at a Taiwanese integrated circuit (IC) design company. After that, I worked on modems at a technology company in China for several years. During that time, I had a few friends and former colleagues at Google, and when we spoke about their jobs and the company culture, everyone shared really positive experiences. Getting the chance to build a career around work that I enjoy was one of the biggest draws. So I applied and interviewed — and now, two years in, I’m leading a team.

What was your application and interview experience like?

Above everything, my recruiter was really supportive, which helped make the process feel much more straightforward. I actually applied and interviewed for another engineering position at first, but I didn’t end up getting it. I was disappointed at the time, but it wasn’t long before my recruiter shared another position that was even more aligned with my skills and career goals. Finding the right fit doesn’t always happen right away, and I appreciated that my recruiter was so committed to setting me up for success.

What have you learned about leadership since joining Google?

Google is a place where people truly listen and communicate openly. Because of this, I’ve learned to never assume anything. Instead, I put in the time to better understand my team and others we work with. It’s important to stay on the same page when you’re leading a team or project, and that requires respect and regular communication.

What makes Google Taiwan such a special place to work?

Taiwan is home to world-class integrated circuit design companies and is known for its thriving manufacturing industry. There’s a lot of exciting product development work happening here too, and it’s one of our largest sites in Asia. In fact, Taiwan is our largest hardware hub outside of the U.S. — with an engineering team that is uniquely skilled in both software and hardware integration. We collaborate with other functions and teams worldwide, and have opportunities to lead important projects from start to finish. From working on widely used products to building and leading a team, I’ve had growth opportunities here that I couldn’t have imagined just a few years ago. I’m continually inspired by the work we do.

On a more personal note, Taiwan is a relatively small island, easy to get around and nestled between the beach and the mountains — it’s a pretty nice place to work!

You recently participated in a live-streamed event about career opportunities at Google Taiwan. Can you tell us more about that?

The event was aimed at helping potential candidates learn more about technical career opportunities at Google Taiwan and what it’s like to work with us. I really enjoyed the conversation! If anyone is interested, they can watch the recording.

What advice do you have for aspiring Googlers?

Work closely with your recruiter! My recruiter guided me through Google’s interview process, shared tips about how to answer leadership-based questions and gave me insight into what the technical interview would be like. I hadn’t experienced this kind of interview support and care before, and it went a long way in helping me prepare. If you’re applying for an engineering role, I recommend doing programming exercises to practice your coding abilities. I also revisited my textbooks to review material, brushed up on my skills and searched for tips online from previous interviewees. Going through an interview process can be nerve-wracking, but the best thing you can do is just go for it.

Focused on progress: Our 2022 Diversity Annual Report

Editor’s note: Today, Melonie Parker sent the below email to Google’s employees around the world.

Building for everyone requires vision, and constant revision. We’re continually iterating, examining data-driven outcomes, and learning from both our successes and failures. Our focused efforts in diversity, equity and inclusion are no different.

As we prepared to report on how our DEI work is progressing, we found ourselves once again in the midst of a particularly painful time. I’m personally grappling with the recent hate crimes targeting Black and AAPI communities because of their identitiesTo me, it seems, our wounds are never fully allowed to heal. They're reopened over and over again by these senseless acts. This signals the seriousness of the work we have to do to advance equity and understanding across differences. At Google, I'm inspired by the work we continue to do: We’ve resolved to do better every day and to contribute to a world that is equitable, safe and just."

Since we shared our first Diversity Annual Report in 2014, we’ve built on what we’ve learned to increasingly make Google a place that better represents and embraces the diversity of our world. Our 2022 Diversity Annual Report, released today, shows the positive progress we’re making. We’re encouraged by what the data is telling us: it shows we’re on the right track.

Some highlights:

  • Last year, we achieved our best hiring year yet for women globally (37.5% of hires) and Black+ and Latinx+ hires in the U.S.
  • The number of Black+ and Latinx+ Googlers in the U.S. is growing faster than the Googler community overall, and as a result, we saw our largest increases in representation of Black+ and Latinx+ Googlers in the U.S. ever (20% and 8% respectively year over year).
  • We also improved leadership representation of Black+, Latinx+ and Native American+ Googlers in the U.S. by 27%. Representation of women in leadership is also up 9% year over year.
  • Overall, Black+ attrition in the U.S. was comparable to Google-wide attrition levels for the first time ever. We are also seeing promising progress in the improved attrition for many of our intersectional communities, including Black+ women.
  • The data from our Diversity Annual Report also shows us areas where we’ll work to do better, and we remain focused on improving hiring and retention for Native American+ Googlers, and retention for Black+ and Latinx+ men outside of tech.
  • We’re also encouraged by what we heard from our employees this year: 87% of Googlers say they feel comfortable being themselves at work (up 3% year over year), and 91% say their work groups value diverse perspectives (up 2%).

Behind all these stats are programs and strategies that are helping us make real progress. In 2021, we focused on building belonging through learning opportunities like the Racial Equity Learning Platform, and by offering career development and mentoring programs like our Noogler onboarding for Black+ employees at all levels. We also tripled our Retention and Progression team so every organization within Google has someone dedicated to supporting employees from underrepresented communities.

As we move to hybrid work, we want Googlers entering physical spaces to feel valued and respected so they can do their best work. The Diversity Annual Report notes how we’re making our workspaces more inclusive and accessible across all Google sites — especially notable today as we celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day.

A broad industry focus on representation and access is also important to us. That’s why we continue to invest in communities and efforts such as the Latino Founders Fund, awarding non-dilutive funding, paired with deep mentorship from Google experts, to help Latinx founders retain ownership of their companies. And in 2021, Grow with Google launched a series of Asian-owned small and medium business workshops in partnership with the U.S. Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce.

We’re also thinking long-term about representation, as we build pathways into tech and digital skills for people from underrepresented communities. Also in 2021, we expanded Mind the Gap, an initiative that encourages women and girls to pursue STEM careers. Additionally, we expanded support for Native American and Indigenous job-seekers in the U.S. and Canada.

I see our 2022 Diversity Annual Report as a powerful reflection of how we are reaching critical “near stars” on our journey toward the North Star of building an inclusive workplace at Google.

I hope you will check out this year’s Diversity Annual Report to share in our progress and what we’ve learned.

Thank you,

Melonie

Making Android more accessible for braille users

Editor’s note: Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day, and we’ll be sharing more on how we’re partnering with people with disabilitiesand what we’re doing to make education more accessible.

The heart of our mission at Google is making the world’s information truly accessible. But the reality is we can only realize this mission with the help of the community. This year at I/O, we announced one more step in the right direction, thanks to feedback and help from our users: We’re making it easier for braille readers to use Android. Available in our next Android 13 Beta in a few weeks, we are beginning to build out-of-the-box support for braille displays in Talkback, our screen reader within Android.

A refreshable braille display is an electro-mechanical device that creates braille patterns by raising rounded pins through holes in a flat surface. Braille-literate computer users use the braille display to touch-read braille dots representing text. With the display, you can also type out braille. These devices help people with deafblindness access mobile phones and people with blindness use their phones silently. Previously, people connected their Android devices to braille displays using the BrailleBack app, which required a separate download from the Play Store, or used a virtual keyboard within Talkback instead of a physical device.

With this new update, there are no additional downloads necessary to use most braille displays. People can use braille displays to access many of the same features available with Talkback. For instance, you can use display buttons to navigate your screen and then do activities like compose an email, make a phone call, send a text message or read a book.

There are also new shortcuts that make it easier to use braille displays with Talkback. Now there are shortcuts for navigating so it’s easier to scroll and move to the next character, word or line. There are also shortcuts for settings and for editing, like jumping to the end of documents or selecting, copying and pasting.

You can sign up for the Android beta program to try out Talkback 13 in the next beta release.

We are grateful to the community for their ongoing feedback that makes features like these possible. This is just the first step forward in developing this integration, and we can’t wait to do even more to expand the feature and to create even more related capabilities.

Earn more from your video streams through automation

What if managing your video streaming business didn’t have to be so complex? What if your team didn’t have to dig through data across devices, apps, live streams and video on-demand to find insights?

We’ve built new solutions in Ad Manager to simplify these processes and save publishers time — helping you automatically uncover new opportunities, manage all your video streams with flexibility and ultimately grow your video revenue.

Automatically uncover new insights

Ad Manager already provides video-specific tools and time-based metrics to help you understand the true potential of every commercial break. But making sense of your video reporting data and finding insights for your business can be a challenging, manual task.

Our new Programmatic Video Health Tools save time by highlighting opportunities you may have missed, right when you log into your account. These granular insights can help you determine why some inventory performs better than others at auction.

A dashboard labeled “Programmatic video signals” with a multi-colored line graph and different advertising metrics.

The programmatic video signals card automatically generates a snapshot of how your video inventory is performing. It shows signals that are important to advertisers, such as viewability, app or web domain name and audience information — plus their impact on revenue. These three dimensions make it easier for advertisers to value your inventory and can help you grow your revenue by identifying where these metrics can improve. Globally, publishers with high programmatic inventory signal coverage see an average 25% revenue uplift compared to inventory with low programmatic inventory signal coverage.[be2de3]

A dashboard labeled “VAST errors” with a multi-colored line graph and different advertising metrics.

We’ve heard from publishers that error reporting for lost ad requests (that can directly impact revenue) requires a lot of manual tasks across multiple video-specific reports. With the Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) errors insights card, Ad Manager uses automation to quickly show you the number of errors on your inventory and which line items are causing the errors, so you don’t have to spend time running a custom report.

A dashboard labeled “VAST errors” with a multi-colored line graph and the “line item view” filter selected.

You can even sort the list of line items to find errors with the highest impact on revenue. By surfacing these actionable error insights early, the VAST error insights card can help you increase revenue by fixing misconfigured settings or broken creatives.

Lastly, because we know every publisher has unique business needs, we’ll release a Video Performance Alerts solution to beta to help you automate insights based on specific requirements. With Video Performance Alerts, you’ll be able to create customized email alerts for your choice of campaign metrics and dimensions. For example, you can create an alert for when total impressions across a line item drops below an expected daily threshold. So instead of constantly logging in to check on campaign performance, you’ll get notified automatically.

Identify and fix problems faster with new reporting tools

Quickly finding a problem will help you resolve it sooner and earn more revenue. This is especially important during traffic spikes from large audiences tuning into new episodes or live events. So we created real-time video reporting to help you quickly get the information you need.

With real-time video reporting, we’ve improved historical ad serving data availability by 10x, shortening the time to access performance data to under two minutes — so you can get ad unit or line item level data to find and fix errors before the next commercial break. Keep an eye out for new solutions over the coming quarters to help you identify and solve issues in real time.

A web page titled “Delivery tools” with the subtitle “Inspect ad delivery on a YouTube video.” Underneath are steps to troubleshoot, and to the right is an illustration of a laptop displaying the YouTube logo.

For publishers serving ads to their content on YouTube with Ad Manager, we’ve launched a new troubleshooting tool to open beta. With the YouTube ads delivery tool, you can test ad delivery on YouTube inventory. It lets you see data like ad requests, key-values and details for the winning line items to help you validate and fix issues. To make sure everything is behaving and delivering as expected, you can even test line items and simulate requests.

Supporting your video streaming growth

We hope these new automated solutions and faster reporting tools give you the time and space to focus on growing your business. Look out for more updates this year to help you improve troubleshooting, test your set up and find more insights.

Helping every student learn how they learn best

Editor’s note: Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day. We’re also sharing how we’re partnering with people with disabilitiesto build products and a newAndroid accessibility feature.

I often think about what Laura Allen, a Googler who leads our accessibility and disability inclusion work and is low vision, shared with me about her experience growing up using assistive technology in school. She said: “Technology should help children learn the way they need to learn, it shouldn’t be a thing that makes them feel different in the classroom.”

As someone who has spent years building technology at Google, I’ve thought a lot about how we can create the best possible experience for everyone. A big part of getting that right is building accessibility right into our products — which is especially important when it comes to technology that helps students learn. Ninety-five percent of students who have disabilities attend traditional schools, but the majority of those classrooms lack resources to support their needs. The need for accessible learning experiences only intensifies with the recent rise of blended learning environments.

  • Teacher working with a student on a Chromebook

    An educator works 1:1 with a student

  • A teacher sitting with a student with intellectual disabilities. The teacher's cane is leaning on the table nearby.

    An educator sits with a student working on a Chromebook.

  • One autistic student and one student with Downs Syndrome working together in classroom on a Chromebook

    Students in their special education class working together in their classroom

We want students to have the tools they need to express themselves and access information in a way that works best for them. Here are a few recent ways we’ve built accessibility features directly into our education tools.

  • You can now add alt-text in Gmail. This allows people to add context for an image, making it accessible for people using screen readers and helping them better understand exactly what is being shared.
  • We’ve improved our Google Docs experience with braille support. With comments and highlights in braille, students reading a Google Doc will now hear start and end indications for comments and highlights alongside the rest of the text. This change makes it easier for people using screen readers and refreshable braille displays to interact with comments in documents and identify text with background colors.

We added new features to dictation on Chrome OS. Now you canspeak into any text field on the Chromebook simply by clicking on the mic icon in the status area or pressing Search + d to dictate. The dictation feature can be helpful for students who have trouble writing — whether that's because of dysgraphia, having a motor disability or something else. You can also edit using just your voice. Simply say “new line” to move the cursor to another line, “help” to see the full list of commands, or “undo” to fix any typos or mistakes.

Accessibility in action

We see the helpfulness of these features when they’re in the hands of teachers and students. My team recently spoke with Tracey Green, a teacher of the Deaf and an Itinerant Educational Specialist from the Montreal Oral School for the Deaf (MOSD) in Quebec. Her job is to work with students with hearing loss who attend local schools.

She and Chris Webb, who is a teacher at John Rennie High School and also a Google for Education Certified Innovator and Trainer, have been using Google Classroom to support students throughout distance learning and those who have returned to the classroom. For example, they integrate YouTube videos with automatic captioning and rely on captions in Google Meet. Their efforts to improve access to information during school assemblies kicked off a school-wide, student-led accessibility initiative to raise awareness about hearing loss and related accessibility issues.

Benefiting everyone

One phenomenon that underscores how disability-first features benefit everyone is called the “Curb-cut Effect.” When curbs were flattened to allow access for people with disabilities, it also meant greater access for bikers, skateboarders, and people pushing strollers or shopping carts. Everyone benefitted. Similarly, accessibility improvements like these recent updates to our education tools mean a better experience for everyone.

We see this similar effect time and time again among our own products. Take Live Caption in the Chrome browser for example. Similar to Google Meet captions, Live Caption in Chrome captions any video and audio content on your browser, which can be especially helpful for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. It can also be helpful when people want to read content without noise so they don’t disrupt the people around them.

When we build accessible products, we build for everyone. It’s one of the things I love about working for Google — that we serve the world. There’s a lot of work ahead of us to make sure our products delight all people, with and without disabilities. I’m excited and humbled by technology’s potential to help get us closer to this future.

Stay up-to-date on the latest accessibility features from Google for Education.

How we build with and for people with disabilities

Editor’s note: Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day. We’re also sharing how we’re making education more accessibleand launching a newAndroid accessibility feature.

Over the past nine years, my job has focused on building accessible products and supporting Googlers with disabilities. Along the way, I’ve been constantly reminded of how vast and diverse the disability community is, and how important it is to continue working alongside this community to build technology and solutions that are truly helpful.

Before delving into some of the accessibility features our teams have been building, I want to share how we’re working to be more inclusive of people with disabilities to create more accessible tools overall.

Nothing about us, without us

In the disability community, people often say “nothing about us without us.” It’s a sentiment that I find sums up what disability inclusion means. The types of barriers that people with disabilities face in society vary depending on who they are, where they live and what resources they have access to. No one’s experience is universal. That’s why it’s essential to include a wide array of people with disabilities at every stage of the development process for any of our accessibility products, initiatives or programs.

We need to work to make sure our teams at Google are reflective of the people we’re building for. To do so, last year we launched our hiring site geared toward people with disabilities — including our Autism Career Program to further grow and strengthen our autistic community. Most recently, we helped launch the Neurodiversity Career Connector along with other companies to create a job portal that connects neurodiverse candidates to companies that are committed to hiring more inclusively.

Beyond our internal communities, we also must partner with communities outside of Google so we can learn what is truly useful to different groups and parlay that understanding into the improvement of current products or the creation of new ones. Those partnerships have resulted in the creation of Project Relate, a communication tool for people with speech impairments, the development of a completely new TalkBack, Android’s built-in screen reader, and the improvement of Select-to-Speak, a Chromebook tool that lets you hear selected text on your screen spoken out loud.

Equitable experiences for everyone

Engaging and listening to these communities — inside and outside of Google — make it possible to create tools and features like the ones we’re sharing today.

The ability to add alt-text, which is a short description of an image that is read aloud by screen readers, directly to images sent through Gmail starts rolling out today. With this update, people who use screen readers will know what’s being sent to them, whether it’s a GIF celebrating the end of the week or a screenshot of an important graph.

Communication tools that are inclusive of everyone are especially important as teams have shifted to fully virtual or hybrid meetings. Again, everyone experiences these changes differently. We’ve heard from some people who are deaf or hard of hearing, that this shift has made it easier to identify who is speaking — something that is often more difficult in person. But, in the case of people who use ASL, we’ve heard that it can be difficult to be in a virtual meeting and simultaneously see their interpreter and the person speaking to them.

Multi-pin, a new feature in Google Meet, helps solve this. Now you can pin multiple video tiles at once, for example, the presenter’s screen and the interpreter’s screen. And like many accessibility features, the usefulness extends beyond people with disabilities. The next time someone is watching a panel and wants to pin multiple people to the screen, this feature makes that possible.

We've also been working to make video content more accessible to those who are blind or low-vision through audio descriptions that describe verbally what is on the screen visually. All of our English language YouTube Originals content from the past year — and moving forward — will now have English audio descriptions available globally. To turn on the audio description track, at the bottom right of the video player, click on “Settings”, select “Audio track”, and choose “English descriptive”.

For many people with speech impairments, being understood by the technology that powers tools like voice typing or virtual assistants can be difficult. In 2019, we started work to change that through Project Euphonia, a research initiative that works with community organizations and people with speech impairments to create more inclusive speech recognition models. Today, we’re expanding Project Euphonia’s research to include four more languages: French, Hindi, Japanese and Spanish. With this expansion, we can create even more helpful technology for more people — no matter where they are or what language they speak.

I’ve learned so much in my time working in this space and among the things I’ve learned is the absolute importance of building right alongside the very people who will most use these tools in the end. We’ll continue to do that as we work to create a more inclusive and accessible world, both physically and digitally.

Milan Cathedral, up close and beautiful

There is a particular shade of pink in the marble that makes Milan Cathedral unique. It is this marble, from Candoglia quarries, that inspired Milan Cathedral Remixed to take a fresh look at the iconic Duomo.

The heart of the city

The Duomo has stood in the center of Milan for 635 years — a proud spiritual and architectural reference point for a city in constant evolution. The dream of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Lord of Milan, work began in 1386, overseen by the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo, which then took care of the conservation and enhancement of the Cathedral.

Looking at the Cathedral today, it’s as though it is in dialogue with the surrounding square and the city beyond. The large stained glass windows with their finely inlaid Biblia pauperum (literally the Bible for the poor — or those who couldn’t read), heralding modern media in their use of images to represent scripture.

The power of technology

Milan Cathedral Remixed was made possible by Google Arts & Culture technology, in partnership with the Veneranda Fabbrica. This ambitious digitization project led to the capture of more than 50 stained glass windows in high resolution, bringing the Google Art Camera to a dizzying height of 30 meters. This captured the details of more than 2,000 stained glass window panels, many of which can’t be seen from ground level. With Street View, we can now see every corner of the Cathedral in 360°, from the highest peak, the Madonnina, down to the Crypt — an underground place of meditation and prayer.

Discover, learn and play with Milan Cathedral Remixed

Read the Biblical stories and find out about the Cathedral’s modern and contemporary art from the 80 narratives that link ancient with contemporary inside the Duomo.

One of these narratives, “Lux fuit” (literally, there was light) takes a close up look at the Cathedral’s windows, the stories they depict and the light flooding through.

These extraordinary stained-glass windows have aroused wonder across the centuries. Many celebratedpoets and authors have written of them, and they inspired the creation of the Google Arts & Culture Coloring Book and Puzzle Party. It is this heritage that Veneranda Fabbrica preserves for us all, and for our descendants.

Visit g.co/milancathedral or download Google Arts & Culture’s Android or iOS app to continue learning and having fun.

  • A view of the central nave and main altar. At the back, a majestic stained-glass decoration.

    The Central Nave is the solemn entrance of this gothic masterpiece. Note the astonishing marble floors and ceiling that stretches up to 45 meters.

  • A panel showing the creation of the stars and the sky, as told in the Old Testament.

    Zoom in on the panels and see the colors and extraordinary details of 38 stained-glass windows, digitized in super high-resolution with Google Art Camera.

  • On the terrace of the Cathedral rooftop, at sunset, a contemporary art exhibit contrasts with the ancient Gothic spires.

    From top to bottom, take a tour of the Cathedral up to the terraces that overlook the city center.

  • This 15th-century stained-glass depicts the Visitation, as told in the Gospel of Luke, where Mary hugs her cousin Elizabeth

    The Visitation, a 15-century hug, on one the Cathedral’s oldest stained-glass windows.

  • In a dark room of the museum, light brings to life the colors and stories of the stained-glass.

    People from all over the world can now discover details invisible to in person visitors.

Chrome Beta for Android Update

Hi everyone! We've just released Chrome Beta 102 (102.0.5005.58) for Android. It's now available on Google Play.

You can see a partial list of the changes in the Git log. For details on new features, check out the Chromium blog, and for details on web platform updates, check here.

If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug.

Erhu Akpobaro
Google Chrome