Hispanic Heritage Month: What it means to be here today

Today we kick off Hispanic Heritage Month, a month-long exploration of the Latino experience in the United States. For me my culture serves as inspiration for my work as a visual designer for Google Shopping, as a small business owner and as a working artist. My parents immigrated to the United States from Huejotitan, Jalisco, to San José, California, where I was born. Growing up my family and I would sometimes make the trek by car from San José to Guadalajara to visit family. Each trip meant I got to collect colorful trinkets, devour candy and make new memories that inspire my art everyday. The nostalgia of these experiences combined with my parents’ struggle to thrive in the US are the filters that color my work in and outside of Google. As a first generation college graduate and Chicano, it is my privilege and responsibility to share and celebrate my culture with new generations, and amplify the stories about my community the world has yet to hear.


I invite you to take a moment to honor, learn and reflect about the impact and contributions Latinos continue to make in America everyday. Here are some of the ways Google is honoring our legacy and spotlighting our bright future.

Three images of Frida Kahlo made entirely of candy

“Mi Dulce Frida” by Rubén Darío Villa pulls from sweet nostalgia and is made entirely out of Mexican candies — 19 varieties to be exact. 

Celebrating Latino artists: past, present and future

Illustrated Google Doodle featuring Dr. Ildaura Murillo-Rohde and other healthcare workers

Google is spotlighting the Latino experience all month long, starting with today’s timely Google Doodle honoring Panamanian-American nurse and educator Dr. Ildaura Murillo-Rohde, illustrated by guest artist Loris Lora. An instrumental figure in the foundation of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses (NAHN), Murillo-Rohde dedicated her life to improving the health of underrepresented communities while equipping other Hispanic nurses with the skills to do the same

A mural painted by Diego Rivera

Learn about Diego Rivera's mural at the Detroit Institute of Art, which pays tribute to industry and workers.

Google Arts and Culture’s Latino Cultures in the US hub continues to grow and celebrates the inspiring contributions and experiences of Latinos in America. The exhibit features more than 150 stories from 60 partners, including the Museum of Latin American Art, Ballet Hispanico, Smithsonian Portrait Gallery and the National Park Service. This year, we’re shining a light on Latino Art Now, a new project page dedicated to Latino contemporary artists, including Bay Area installation artist Amalia Mesa-Bains, portrait painter Alfredo Arreguin, Luis Genaro-Garcia and more printmakers at Self Help Graphics & Art. The page also showcases Museo de las America’s story featuring a special Indigenous printing technique.

Singer Celia Cruz standing on grass wearing a yellow gown, arms outstretched and singing.

Read more about Celia Cruz, “the Queen of Salsa” and her mark on American culture.

Chrome partnered with Latino artists to create a collection of themes that celebrate our heritage. Rolling out next week, you can use the themes to customize your Chrome browser and Chromebook wallpapers. The work reflects a variety of meaningful subjects, from family to the subtle ways we all stay connected. This collection continues our work commissioning contemporary artists to visually show how people use Chrome and Chromebooks to get things done, explore, find and connect.

Chrome browser background depicting "The Scenic Route”, an illustration of insects and plants by Marisol Ortega

"The Scenic Route” Chrome theme, by Marisol Ortega

Explore Latino history with Google Assistant

To help expand your knowledge of significant events and people in Latino culture, you can now say “Hey Google, what happened today in Latino history?” on any Assistant-enabled smart speaker, display or phone. You’ll hear unique content each day curated by Arizona State University and the US-Mexico Foundation. One example: On September 15, 1821, five countries in Central America gained independence from Spain.


Image of a user saying “Hey Google, what happened today in Latino history?” on any Assistant-enabled smart speaker, display or phone.


More en español


Starting today, YouTube TV has added three new Spanish language networks for all YouTube TV members at no extra cost: Univision, UniMás and Galavisión.


Hispanic Heritage Month is a time to honor the rich diversity and contributions of Latinos to American culture. And we are just getting started — stay tuned for upcoming announcements.

New logo coming to Google Tasks

Quick launch summary

We’re updating the Google Tasks logo to better align with products across Google Workspace.


New logo


Old logo






This new logo will appear everywhere you see Tasks, across the web and on your mobile devices.

Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. The logo will automatically update across platforms over the coming weeks.

Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers

 

Display campaigns made easy

Helping you connect with customers is core to the Google Ads mission, and we're always working to make that as easy as possible through our products. That’s why, starting this month, we’re bringing the flexibility of standard Display campaigns and the automation of Smart Display campaigns into a single Display campaign. 

We introduced Smart Display campaigns four years ago to create a simple way to reach your audience across millions of sites and apps. Smart Display campaigns have helped make it easier to reach your goals — using automation to find new and existing customers, tailor your creative and set optimal bids.

Then we brought the best of this automation to standard Display campaigns, powering features like responsive display ads and automated bidding — even the option to pay only for the conversions your ads drive. We’ve seen these lead to better business outcomes for advertisers; but we’ve also heard that your priorities can change, and you want greater flexibility to test new features.

In this new Display campaign experience, you’ll have all of the reach and performance you’re used to, with the ability to choose the level of automation you prefer in bidding, creatives and audiences. A smooth setup process will allow you to choose between automation or control up front, and you’ll have the flexibility to change your automation choices at any time — without creating a new campaign. 

A video introducing Display ads and explaining how they can help your business reach customers online
10:25

Whether you choose an automatic or customized experience, Display ads are designed to help you meet your customers in the moments that matter. With that in mind, we've also introduced optimized targeting to Display campaigns to replicate the effortless experience of automatic audience targeting previously available only on Smart Display campaigns. This is an easier option for reaching new and relevant audiences — driving impressions, clicks or conversions to help you meet your goals.

A screenshot showing the new Display campaign setup process in Google Ads. It features a notification that says “Optimized targeting is set up for you”, and an optional button to “add targeting.”

Optimized targeting in the new Display campaign creator

Advanced advertisers can continue to add the manual audience-finding options from standard Display campaigns for more control, or use these audiences in combination with optimized targeting. Optimized targeting will treat audience settings as signals, looking more broadly to find customers that can improve your campaign performance and deliver a better ad experience.

Our top priority is helping you reach your customers with more relevant ads. And with one simplified Display campaign, we’re making it easier than ever.

Keep up to date with the latest Display campaign innovations in the Help Center.

Display campaigns made easy

Helping you connect with customers is core to the Google Ads mission, and we're always working to make that as easy as possible through our products. That’s why, starting this month, we’re bringing the flexibility of standard Display campaigns and the automation of Smart Display campaigns into a single Display campaign. 

We introduced Smart Display campaigns four years ago to create a simple way to reach your audience across millions of sites and apps. Smart Display campaigns have helped make it easier to reach your goals — using automation to find new and existing customers, tailor your creative and set optimal bids.

Then we brought the best of this automation to standard Display campaigns, powering features like responsive display ads and automated bidding — even the option to pay only for the conversions your ads drive. We’ve seen these lead to better business outcomes for advertisers; but we’ve also heard that your priorities can change, and you want greater flexibility to test new features.

In this new Display campaign experience, you’ll have all of the reach and performance you’re used to, with the ability to choose the level of automation you prefer in bidding, creatives and audiences. A smooth setup process will allow you to choose between automation or control up front, and you’ll have the flexibility to change your automation choices at any time — without creating a new campaign. 

A video introducing Display ads and explaining how they can help your business reach customers online
10:25

Whether you choose an automatic or customized experience, Display ads are designed to help you meet your customers in the moments that matter. With that in mind, we've also introduced optimized targeting to Display campaigns to replicate the effortless experience of automatic audience targeting previously available only on Smart Display campaigns. This is an easier option for reaching new and relevant audiences — driving impressions, clicks or conversions to help you meet your goals.

A screenshot showing the new Display campaign setup process in Google Ads. It features a notification that says “Optimized targeting is set up for you”, and an optional button to “add targeting.”

Optimized targeting in the new Display campaign creator

Advanced advertisers can continue to add the manual audience-finding options from standard Display campaigns for more control, or use these audiences in combination with optimized targeting. Optimized targeting will treat audience settings as signals, looking more broadly to find customers that can improve your campaign performance and deliver a better ad experience.

Our top priority is helping you reach your customers with more relevant ads. And with one simplified Display campaign, we’re making it easier than ever.

Keep up to date with the latest Display campaign innovations in the Help Center.

YouTube NextUp: Are you the next big thing on YouTube?

Last year, creators on YouTube generated billions of views daily and earned millions of dollars via our revenue-sharing Partner Program. In addition to teaching individuals how to crochet flowers and apply the perfect lipstick, Africa's top creators also taught people how to have fun.


We believe that the next generation of successful singers, dancers, actors, producers, musicians, and make-up artists are already honing their skills on YouTube , and we want to see more of them take the next step in their YouTube careers and convert their video hobby into a profession or perhaps a small company.


YouTube NextUp was introduced in 2011 to help YouTube creators take their channel to the next level. Over 250 YouTube artists from 15 different countries have benefited from this initiative, which has helped them to enhance their channels and jumpstart a new stage of development on YouTube. From science enthusiasts like AsapSCIENCE, Marcus Butler, MegwinTV, to foodies like Laura Vitale, NextUp has continued to help selected creators become some of YouTube's brightest stars.
We’re thrilled to announce the expansion of the YouTube NextUp program to Sub Saharan Africa, beginning with Nigeria and South Africa. In 2021, 20 creators in Nigeria and South Africa will be selected for the development program, which offers:
  • A spot at a week-long YouTube creator Camp in which they’ll benefit from 1:1 mentoring and learn an array of production techniques from leading industry and YouTube experts
  • A $1,000 voucher for production equipment to help you make your video dreams a reality.
  • Personalized one-on-one support from the YouTube team until April 2022
  • Mentorship by YouTube NextUp grads, plus the opportunity to meet and work with other fast-rising creators. 
  • The opportunity to become better connected with a special community of aspiring and talented content creators from around the world

So who’s next up? We're looking for YouTube creators who are dedicated, passionate, and inspiring, and who fulfill our eligibility criteria, including having a channel with 10,000 to 100,000 subscribers and having posted at least 3 original and native videos in the past three months. .



Full eligibility details, application guidelines and contest rules available at https://events.withgoogle.com/nextup/


We’re excited to see what you’ll come up with next on YouTube!





Posted by Addy Awofisayo, YouTube Content Partnerships, Sub Saharan Africa


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Driving success for Australian retail with digitalisation

In spite of the  significant disruption to the retail sector, we’ve seen firsthand how companies have accelerated their digital transformation journey to better differentiate themselves in a highly competitive market.

In fact, the Google Cloud Retail Digital Pulse looked at the digital maturity across Australian retail and found the segment to be steadily advancing towards becoming more digitally resilient. The business sentiment is however still mixed and the market shows a split between those who have embraced digital and are thriving, and those that have not and are struggling. 

Among Australian respondents, almost a quarter (23.3 percent) said investment in digitalisation was driven by the desire to reduce costs and improve profitability, with 17.5 percent wanting to improve customer experience to drive revenue and/or increase KPI scores. Building customer data platforms, enhancing capabilities around marketing optimisation and the ability to drive personalisation are some priority use cases for Australian retailers. While challenges remain around budgets, inability to harness customer/operational data and lack of digital transformation roadmaps, more than half (58.3 percent) of respondents are looking to Cloud Services providers for help with digitalisation. 

We’re proud of the role we play in supporting the retail sector in Australia (and beyond) to enhance digital offerings and embrace the future of retail, empowering businesses to harness their data to achieve tangible business results and enhance customer relationships. 

Here’s a look at how some of our Australian customers are leveraging Google Cloud to transform their offering for customers: 

Country Road Group & David Jones: Unearthing data for digital growth

When COVID-19 forced the closure of storefronts, the Country Road Group and David Jones marketing teams sought to demonstrate the value of digital for both engaging customers and sales. After experiencing a 50 percent increase in requests for data analytics, pulling reports from multiple dashboards and structuring them to be meaningful and relevant, became extremely time intensive. 

Looking to Cloud Services providers for help with digitalisation, Country Road Group & David Jones engaged MightyHive to transform marketing for the business. The provider leveraged BigQuery as the business’s data source, connecting with Looker to better explore, share, and visualise the company's supplier and campaign data. 

Consolidating multiple disparate data sources into just three dashboards has minimised the volume of manual reporting, saving the team a full day per week. Looker has also delivered more comprehensive insights to inform the future growth of the business. 

Hanes: Data drives enhanced consumer experience

Hanes Australasia is home to some of Australia’s best-known apparel and lifestyle brands, including Bonds, Bras N Things, and Sheridan. It’s among the 40.8 percent of retailers who adopted technology for marketing optimisation. 

Hanes recognised that data was key to understanding consumer behaviour, preferences, and to driving revenue from its ecommerce investments. The company implemented Google Cloud services—including scalable and serverless BigQuery data warehousing, the Firebase mobile development platform, Cloud Functions to build and connect cloud services, and Pub/Sub event ingestion and delivery—to deliver on these opportunities. 

The business can now collect detailed in-store transaction data along with on-site transaction and customer event data, that is streamed in near-real time into Google Cloud. This data provides a wealth of information that can be transformed into actionable insights for marketing optimisation, and to help support wholesale partners.

JB HiFi: Personalisation drives transaction value

With 39.8 percent of Australian respondents leveraging technology for product discovery and search, JB HiFi is one example of how personalisation can be a powerful driver of success.  

Previously, JB Hi-Fi’s buying team would manually recommend products to visitors — a time-consuming process that meant recommendations of three or four associated products represented only a fraction of the more than  50,000 products available on its website. 

After deploying Recommendations AI, JB Hi-Fi found the average transaction value (ATV) for products recommended increased, when compared to manual processes. Furthermore, monthly average revenue from recommended products increased when compared to manually curated products, and the conversion rate for products offered on the JB Hi-Fi home page also improved. 

The adoption of Recommendations AI has also given JB Hi-Fi the ability to give its customers a more personalised online experience matching it to the personalised, expert experience delivered to customers in-store.

Continuing momentum in a 'post-COVID' world

Beyond the noise and challenges of COVID-19,  retailers are still navigating  what the ‘new normal’ looks like for them and how to manage the blurring of online and in-store interactions with customers. As ecommerce continues as the driving engine for growth, digital transformation remains central to retailers’ long term success.  Commitment to a digital strategy and investing to accelerate the journey to digital resilience is going to be the key. At the same time, it is a great opportunity for retailers to further build on their digital foundations to enable differentiation in the market.

Google Cloud is committed to leading the digital transformation of Australia’s retail sector. We’re continuing to expand our capabilities for merchants, offering tools and solutions designed specifically for the retail industry. Our aim is to empower partners with a scalable platform of innovation, digitisation and efficiency to ultimately give our retail customers the tools they need to thrive.


Taste Mexico: Sampling centuries of Mexican heritage

“From yellow corn and white corn their flesh was made; from corn dough the arms and legs of man were made,” reads the ancient pre-Hispanic legend written in the sacred Mayan book, the Popol Vuh.


The connection between food and cultural heritage couldn’t be stronger. And according to Mexican chef Martha Ortiz, Mexican food is identity. “It’s such a strong gastronomy that it makes us believe why the Popol Vuh said that we’re made of corn,” she says. “And even Mexico’s flag is quite gastronomic, with the eagle devouring a snake while standing on prickly pears and nopales (prickly pear cacti).”


Martha is one of the chefs who participated in Google Arts & Culture’s latest program, Taste Mexico. It showcases the deep connection between food, culture, legacy and art represented in Mexican food with more than 220 stories, 6000 images and 200 videos from 31 partner institutions. Subjects range from the traditional Mexican female cooks, called mayoras, to internationally known chefs like Martha and Enrique Olvera.

A spoonful of Hispanic legacy

Martha says Mexican food represents Hispanic heritage in its inclusivity, capturing the fusion of beliefs and traditions that created the mestizo culture. “Nowadays there’s a big discussion on the past, the indigenous peoples and colonization. The way I see it, is that in gastronomy there wasn’t violence,” she says. “The earth was fertile, and in the clay pots and wooden spoons were mixed local ingredients like chili peppers with new ones, like the sesame seeds brought by the Spaniards, who were introduced to it by the Moors.” The Taste Mexico virtual exhibit includes topics like the fusion of Mexican cuisine and the blend of cultures in new creations, like chocolate.
  • A woman with a flower on her head, hands outstretched holding coffee beans

    Today, many women have taken over coffee plantations, as can be seen in The Flowers of the Coffee Field Project by Colectivo Rokunin.

  • A woman wearing an apron putting a tortilla on a pan over an open flame

    Marina Hernández Ramírez is a traditional chef from Santo Domingo Yanhuitlán, Oaxaca, Mexico.

  • A variety of fruit laying on a table next to a Chile en Nogada dish

    Chile en Nogada is a flagship Mexican dish that represents the colors of the flag.

  • Psychedelic digital composition set in parallel with a dish by Chef Martha Ortiz

    Artwork from the exhibition We Eat color, by Martha Ortiz and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Querétaro MACQ

  • A person wearing a colorful mask and a hat stands in a corn field

    There are several rites to call for rain in Mexican history, and many indigenous communities continue to preserve these traditions.

  • Three tacos and two lime wedges on a plate.

    Tacos Gobernador are a traditional dish from Sinaloa that mixes seafood and tortillas.

  • A woman stands in front of cooking materials in a traditional kitchen

    Marta Atzin founded “Mujeres de Humo” (Women of Smoke) a collective of women who aim to preserve traditional recipes in Veracruz.

For Martha, Mexican gastronomy is more than just food — it’s art. It’s a mix of narratives, sounds, images and senses. She thinks about the sound and the feel of the chilli peppers breaking against the stone when preparing a traditional mole, or the clapping sounds of the women making tortillas in a market, which she refers to as a tortilla symphony. “It’s a mise-en-scène. There’s theatricality, a plot, a lyric, beauty and taste.” Through Taste of Mexico, experience that theatricality through iconic markets like Melchor Ocampo or the ones in Puebla. 


Martha remembers the colorful paintings of the Oaxacan artist Rufino Tamayo, and it makes her think about the colors of that state where you can have a black mole with red rice served on a blue plate at a deep green “fonda.” That’s why she doesn't refer to the people who visit her restaurants as dinner guests, but as dish collectors.

A flavorful concert

With this in mind, Martha organized an art and food physical exhibition and event in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art Querétaro, “We Eat Color” — which is now part of Taste Mexico — that offered a fusion of art, gastronomy and music. Martha prepared surprising dishes in six colors — white, yellow, green, red, black and psychedelia, which represents the combination of all the colors. — that merged with the music from the State of Querétaro Philharmonic and with the plastic work of five local artists. 


Creating narratives is the base of Martha’s cooking style. It’s not just about preparing a dish, but about telling a story based on Mexican history and culture. From the way pink mole connects a wedding tradition in Taxco and the local religious beliefs of Santa Prisca, to the way the national dish, Chile en Nogada, represents hope and freedom, or how eating a black mole with a tortilla is like having a dish of night and day, since pre-hispanic tradition dictates that tortillas are the communion with the sun. “Mexican cuisine is a cultural manifestation that has a powerful legacy, and thus a powerful future,” she says.“Life is meant to offer beauty, and Mexican gastronomy is beautiful.”

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5 things I learned from Google’s productivity expert

I’ve primarily worked remotely for the better part of the last decade, but when the pandemic sent everyone else home from the office, I struggled. Even though I was extremely familiar with working from home, I wasn’t used to spending all my free time at home, too. Like people everywhere, staying productive when the home became the office, and the gym, and the dog daycare, and the everything else was challenging. 

Headshot of Laura Mae Martin looking into the camera and smiling.

Google’s Executive Productivity Advisor Laura Mae Martin

Fortunately, I knew there was someone who could help me. Laura Mae Martin is Google’s Executive Productivity Advisor, and over the years, she’s been offering Googlers advice on how to stay productive, even when our surroundings make it difficult. Her guidance has been an incredible resource — and now it’s available for everyone. “The Google Workspace guide to productivity and wellbeing” is a downloadable, free ebook that shares tons of Laura’s best tips and ideas for making the most of your time. As a bit of a preview, here are five things I learned from the guide that I’ve found most helpful: 

  1. Pinpointing my peak times:One tip from Laura is to figure out when you work best. “Make a list of the times throughout the day and week when you feel most energized and focused,” she writes. These are “peak times,” and likely when you’re going to be the most productive. 

  2. Don’t fight that Friday feeling:There’s a reason Friday afternoons can feel like they’re dragging on. In her guide, Laura advises that you don’t try to overplan the end of the week. “Fridays can be a great window for returning emails or planning the next week,” she says.

  3. Check in even if you can’t respond: Getting through email is one of the most daunting tasks of any job, and everyone’s experienced the pile-up problem. One tip from Laura  is to respond to emails that require your input within 24 hours — even if it’s just to say “I can’t get to this right now, but I will by the end of the week.”

  4. Sometimes, less time is more: According to Parkinson’s Law, “work expands to the allotted time,” meaning if you put 30 minutes on the calendar for a meeting, you and your colleagues will feel like you have to use all of that time even if you’re done within 20 minutes. Laura’s advice: Put shorter amounts of time on the calendar. 

  5. Welcome the “whitespace”:We spend a lot of our time at work getting things done, or “closing loops” as Laura puts it. But it’s important to make time to just think and brainstorm, to come up with new ideas. One way you can make that happen is by putting blocks on your calendar for dedicated time to do exactly that. 

That’s just a tiny sample of everything I learned from Laura. The guide has so many ways you can maximize your time at work (so you can maximize your time not at work) plus how you can use Google Workspace to put these ideas into practice.  You can download it now.  

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The new Google Cloud region in Toronto is now open

For over a decade, we’ve been investing in Canada to become a go-to cloud partner for organizations across the country. Whether they’re in financial services, media and entertainment, retail, telecommunications or the public sector, a rapidly growing number of organizations located or operating in Canada are choosing Google Cloud to help them build applications better and faster, store data, and deliver awesome experiences to their users, all on the cleanest cloud in the industry. To support this growing customer base, we’re excited to announce that the new Google Cloud region in Toronto is now open.


As you’d expect, we’re thrilled about this news, but we aren’t the only ones that have been looking forward to this launch. We asked some of our customers operating in Canada for their take on the upcoming cloud region. Here’s what they had to say:


"Our alliance with Google is truly distinctive in the Canadian market as we are working together to co-innovate and create new services for key industries, including communications technology, healthcare, agriculture, security, and the connected home. The new cloud region in Toronto marks another key milestone that will propel TELUS’ digital leadership by further leveraging the scalability, reliability and cost effectiveness of Google Cloud to support improved customer experience and build stronger, healthier and more sustainable communities."
- Hesham Fahmy, Chief Development Officer, TELUS 


“We’re simplifying, modernizing and digitizing Scotiabank to enhance the customer experience for our 25 million customers across the globe. By leveraging powerful cloud-based services including Google Cloud, we’re able to put the most advanced software engineering, data analytics and machine learning tools in the hands of our talented employees. We welcome Google Cloud's investment in Toronto and look forward to the opportunities the Toronto Cloud Region will present to our Technology team.”
- Michael Zerbs, Group Head Technology & Operations, Scotiabank


“Cloud technologies—and the access to scalable compute, rich geospatial datasets and smart analytics tools—will be critical contributors to support climate action and sustainable policy decisions. At Natural Resources Canada, scientists and researchers are applying innovative digital solutions to support Canada’s natural resource sector. The new Google Cloud region in Toronto will provide our scientists, technologists and researchers with the products and services necessary to turn Earth data into actionable insights.” 
- Vik Pant, PhD, Chief Scientist and Chief Science Advisor, Natural Resources Canada


“At Accenture, we bring together technology and human ingenuity to create and respond to change. We’re thrilled to join forces with Google Cloud and their newest region in Toronto with an important mutual goal: to accelerate cloud innovation in Canada. Our clients already know us for our deep industry intelligence, cloud-first expertise and market-renowned delivery. We’re now combining that with Google’s human-centric design to bring even more opportunities to our clients across all industries.” 
- Jeffrey Russell, President of Accenture in Canada


“We are thrilled to see Google’s commitment to Canada. We look forward to helping our joint customers transform their operations, leveraging Google Cloud’s latest data center in Toronto. At Deloitte, we believe cloud is THE opportunity to reimagine everything.”
- Terry Stuart, Deloitte Chief Digital Officer, Canada


“As Canadian organizations increasingly leverage cloud to transform their businesses, we are excited about the new opportunities that the Toronto Google Cloud region brings to the market. We look forward to continuing our strong partnership with Google Cloud to bring customized and innovative solutions that help Canadian companies fully realize the value of cloud technology, so that they can compete and win on the global stage.”
- Andrew Caprara, Chief Operating Officer, Softchoice


Toronto joins 27 existing Google Cloud regions connected via our high-performance network, helping customers better serve their users and customers throughout the globe. In combination with our Montreal region, customers now benefit from improved business continuity planning with distributed, secure infrastructure needed to meet IT and business requirements for disaster recovery, while maintaining data sovereignty.


The new region launches with three zones, allowing organizations of all sizes and industries to distribute apps and storage to protect against service disruptions, and with our core portfolio of Google Cloud Platform products, including Compute Engine, App Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Bigtable, Spanner, and BigQuery.


We’re working to bring you new cloud products and capabilities in Canada, and our goal is to allow you to access those services quickly and easily—wherever you might be in the country. The past year has proved how important easy access to digital infrastructure, technical education, training and support are to helping businesses respond to the pandemic. We’re particularly proud of the teams who faced the unique challenges of building a cloud region during this time to help our customers and community accelerate their digital transformation.


To support all of our users, customers and government organizations in Canada, we’ll continue to invest in new infrastructure, engineering support and solutions. We’re currently hosting our first ever Google Cloud Accelerator Canada to bring the best of Google's programs, products, people and technology to startups doing interesting work in the cloud. We’ve recently received Protected B accreditation with Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, which is crucial for healthcare, education, and regulated industries adopting cloud services. We’re also pleased to announce the preview of Assured Workloads for Canada—a capability which allows you to secure and configure sensitive workloads in accordance with your specific regulatory or policy requirements.


For help migrating to Google Cloud, please contact our local partners. For additional details on Google Cloud regions, please visit our locations page, where you’ll find updates on the availability of additional services and regions. You can always contact us to help you get started or access our many educational resources. We’re excited to see what you build next with Google Cloud.


Posted by Jim Lambe, Managing Director, Canada, Google Cloud

September 2021 update to Display & Video 360 API v1


Today we’re releasing an update to the Display & Video 360 API that includes the following features:
More detailed information about this update can be found in the Display & Video 360 API release notes. Before using these new features, make sure to update your client library to the latest version.


If you run into issues or need help with these new features or samples, please contact us using our support contact form.
- Trevor Mulchay, Display & Video 360 API Team