Voices without borders

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Stephen Cho, Director, Product Management</span><br /><br />Our lives are a fabric of overlapping stories: stories that are entirely unique, stories that are richly specific, stories that define who we are, where we have come from, what we believe in. And while each story is ultimately personal, we find across them the common themes of love and loss, adversity and triumph. Listening to others’ stories, we can better appreciate our shared humanity, and recognize that the stories and lives of everyone, everywhere matter.<br /><br />In the U.S., the <a href="http://www.storycorps.net/">StoryCorps</a> effort seeks to capture, preserve, and share the stories of ordinary people. These can be heard on Friday mornings on <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4516989">National Public Radio</a>’s “Morning Edition.” Earlier this year, a number of interested Googlers met with Dave Isay, founder of StoryCorps, and also with leaders of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) and UNICEF. We realized that collectively, we had a unique and very real opportunity to leverage our respective strengths to take this idea global and to build together an ability to preserve and share online millions of personal stories from around the world.<br /><br />With the good efforts of many people from each of the partners, we brought this inspiration to fruition over the last six months, and are excited to launch the Our Stories project and the <a href="http://www.ourstories.org/">www.ourstories.org</a> site today. From the Google side, this grows out of our passion and commitment to make the experience and wisdom of these personal stories universally accessible to users around the world.<br /><br />One Laptop per Child (<a href="http://www.laptop.org/">www.laptop.org</a>) is a heroic effort to help bring laptops to children in developing countries around the globe. (Google is a founding supporter of OLPC.) The distribution of OLPC laptops provides us with a platform to help preserve and extend the histories and identities of these traditional cultures. Children receive training on the Our Stories activity on the laptops, and record in their native languages the stories of their elders, their family members, and friends. These stories are then uploaded and shared through the website, where they can be found on a Google Map.<br /><br />For this project, UNICEF’s in-country communications teams are working with the schools using OLPC laptops, and also with children using other recording devices, computers, and mobile phones to preserve and share stories online. An enthusiastic team of Google volunteers, including me, developed the laptop application, the interview guides based on the work of StoryCorps, and the website.<br /><br />In the coming years, we hope to capture and share millions of stories, which we believe will help to preserve a truly global, multi-lingual history of humanity in the 21^st century. We also hope that, in some small measure, the ability to listen to the voices of others, to hear first hand about their hopes and challenges, contributes to a better understanding of our shared humanity across the many lines which often divide us.

Voices without borders

Posted by Stephen Cho, Director, Product Management Our lives are a fabric of overlapping stories: stories that are entirely unique, stories...

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Google's (and parents') role in keeping kids safe online

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist</span><br /><br />We know that technologies like the "v-chip" can be used to keep kids from seeing inappropriate content on TV. And while technology has an important role to play in protecting kids online, it's as important that parents implant a symbolic "v-chip" in their children's minds to guide them when it comes to deciding what online content is and is not appropriate.<br /><br />That was one of the observations I shared this week at the <a href="http://www.fosi.org/" id="n4.j" title="Family Online Safety Institute">Family Online Safety Institute</a>'s conference in Washington, D.C. The Internet provides an amazing opportunity for young people to express themselves creatively and access immense quantities of useful information. Kids are using geospatial, mobile and social networking technologies, for example, to learn in new, interactive ways. The Internet also provides unparalleled opportunities for free expression, enabling kids and adults alike to deliver tremendous benefit to society by voicing sometimes unpopular, inconvenient, or controversial opinions.<br /><br />At the same time, there is some online content and activity that is unsuitable for younger users. Google is dedicated to supporting parents' efforts to educate and protect their children when they go online. We've invested in developing family safety tools that empower parents to limit what online content their children can discover. Our <a href="http://www.google.com/help/customize.html#safe" id="mr5-" title="SafeSearch">SafeSearch</a> filter, which users can adjust to block explicit content from their search results, is an example of this type of technology.<br /><br />On <a href="http://www.youtube.com/" id="f.y-" title="YouTube">YouTube</a>, where we host user-generated content, we aim to offer a community for free expression that is suitable for children and protects them from exploitation. Our work to keep YouTube safe for children includes <a href="http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines" id="e886" title="clear policies">clear policies</a> about what is and is not acceptable on the site; robust mechanisms to enforce these policies, such as easy tools for users to police the content by flagging inappropriate videos; innovative product features that enable safe behavior; and YouTube <a href="http://www.youtube.com/t/safety" id="emco" title="safety tips">safety tips</a>.<br /><br />We've also partnered with child safety organizations, including <a href="http://www.commonsensemedia.org/" id="fu1r" title="CommonSense Media">CommonSense Media</a>, <a href="http://www.isafe.org/" id="x1md" title="i-Safe">i-Safe</a>, <a href="http://www.ikeepsafe.org/" id="iliq" title="iKeepSafe">iKeepSafe</a>, <a href="http://www.netfamilynews.org/" id="rc.q" title="NetFamilyNews">NetFamilyNews</a>, and, of course, the Family Online Safety Institute to increase awareness about online child safety. In addition, we cooperate with law enforcement and industry partners to combat child exploitation and help minimize the uploading of illegal content, offering training and technical assistance to law enforcement officials and providing groups like the National Center For Missing and Exploited Children with technology tools to help them be more effective in their work.<br /><br />Keeping children safe on the Web is the shared responsibility of parents and families, educators, industry, and government. We have a shared responsibility to help teach children the media literacy skills they need to become savvy online and offline information consumers and, working together, we believe this goal is attainable.

Google's (and parents') role in keeping kids safe online

Posted by Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist We know that technologies like the "v-chip" can be used to keep kids from seeing in...

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Gmail <3 AIM

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Mike Jazayeri, Senior Product Manager</span><br /><br />Millions of users chat on the Google Talk network every day, and chatting via Gmail chat is by far the most popular way. People tell us they love the convenience and simplicity of having access to their buddies right within the Gmail interface. In fact, for many users, Gmail chat was their first introduction to the world of instant messaging.<br /><br />We've been working with AOL on ways to let our users talk to their buddies on the AIM network, and I'm delighted to announce that the fruits of that labor are <a href="http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/gmail-chat-aim-crazy-delicious.html">live</a>. Starting today, Gmail users can sign into their AIM accounts via Gmail chat and talk with AIM buddies just as they do with their Google Talk friends. Best of all, the features you love most about Gmail chat, such as chat history and automatic sorting of your buddies based on frequency of communication, work seamlessly across your Google and AIM buddies. This is rolling out in the newest English version of Gmail today and will be available in other languages soon.<br /><br />A big thank you to our friends at AOL who worked closely with our engineering team to make this possible--and who we can now chat with while in Gmail. :)

Gmail <3 AIM

Posted by Mike Jazayeri, Senior Product Manager Millions of users chat on the Google Talk network every day, and chatting via Gmail chat is ...

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Tracking Santa, then and now

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Carrie Farrell, Veteran Santa Tracker</span><br /><br />It was more than half a century ago, on Christmas Eve in 1955, that a Sears Roebuck & Co. store in Colorado Springs advertised a special hotline number for kids to call Santa. What the company didn't know at the time was that they had inadvertently misprinted the telephone number. Instead of Santa's workshop, the phone number put kids through to the <a href="http://www.norad.mil/" id="h16u" title="North American Aerospace Defense Command">North American Aerospace Defense Command</a> (NORAD), the bi-national U.S.-Canadian military organization responsible for the aerospace defense of the U. S. and Canada. Worse, it wasn't just any number at NORAD: it was the commander-in-chief's operations hotline. In the spirit of the season, Colonel Harry Shoup, the director of operations at the time, had his staff check radar data for any indication of a sleigh making its way south from the North Pole. They found that indeed there <i>were</i> signs of Santa, and merrily gave the children who called an update on his location. Thus, a tradition was born, and NORAD has continued to help children track Santa on Christmas Eve ever since.<br /><br />It just so happens that Colonel Shoup is my grandfather, which is why I'm so excited that, 52 years later, Google is joining the effort. This holiday season, NORAD has partnered with Google to use technology including Google Maps, Google Earth, iGoogle and YouTube to track Santa. I can remember tracking Santa with my grandfather as a child, and I'm so proud to see my company carry on his vision of doing something this special for kids around the world.<br /><br />The countdown begins December 1st on NORAD's <a href="http://www.noradsanta.org/" id="yb5w" title="website">website</a>, where families can find a new kid-friendly game or activity every day until December 24th. And starting at 1:00 am PST on December 24th, you'll be able to track Santa's trip in real time. You can download <a href="http://earth.google.com/" id="tv1z" title="Google Earth">Google Earth</a> and add the <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=http://www.labpixies.com/gadgads/norad/norad_new.xml&source=snta" id="yz-4" title="NORAD Tracks Santa iGoogle gadget">NORAD Tracks Santa iGoogle gadget</a> to your iGoogle page anytime, but make sure to come back to <a href="http://www.noradsanta.org/" id="i5xa">noradsanta.org</a> on December 24th to download the special Santa Tracking file for an enhanced 3D Santa-tracking experience.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigSbCXZJHD3qgOqGdSx9B16jG5HHjhdGEv2tf7xKBs_GJYuwLTGH1M6WOJa8a-WXs3B0iR7D5AiGKMvuacmWO4lhIKf8jv_6cKPXTvOrPYAIclMielC6vRQ89FTxVuyd3Zl_yWBQQdkEam/s1600-r/Carrie_NORAD.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5138637579855810194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcEKSMgLO_-o95sv-eW1RhhFN8Aa8vYI5eO06EQa6P6Uwdo29sqW5BLywI_dB36c4Q30Y71HVmuokoEkF1w68ANPNd42R2sQPpQ6HcaxNbbNy6ACw4awf7x_7m3FMNm1IUNIfc4pwffeC3/s320/Carrie_NORAD.JPG" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Harry and Carrie.</span><br /></div>

Tracking Santa, then and now

Posted by Carrie Farrell, Veteran Santa Tracker It was more than half a century ago, on Christmas Eve in 1955, that a Sears Roebuck & C...

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Who's going to win the spectrum auction? Consumers.

<span class="byline-author">Posted by by Chris Sacca, Head of Special Initiatives</span><br /><br />Here at Google, we see the upcoming 700 megahertz spectrum auction at the Federal Communications Commission as one of the best opportunities consumers will have to enjoy more choices in the world of wireless devices. That's why <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/fccspectrum_20071130.html">we announced today</a> that we are applying to participate in the auction.<br /><br />We already know that regardless of which bidders ultimately win the auction, consumers will be the real winners either way. This is because the eventual winner of a key portion of this spectrum will be required to give its customers the right to download any application they want on their mobile device, and the right to use any device they want on the network (assuming the C Block reserve price of $4.6 billion is met in the auction). That's meaningful progress in our ongoing efforts to help transform the relatively closed wireless world to be more like the open realm of the Internet.<br /><br />Regardless of how the auction unfolds, we think it's important to put our money where our principles are. Consumers deserve more choices and more competition than they have in the wireless world today. And at a time when so many Americans don't have access to the Internet, this auction provides an unprecedented opportunity to bring the riches of the Net to more people.<br /><br />While we've written a lot <a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/search/label/Telecom" id="mznc" title="on our blogs">on our blogs</a> and spoken publicly about our plans for the auction, unfortunately you're not going to hear from us about this topic for awhile, and we want to explain why.<br /><br />Monday, December 3, is the deadline for prospective bidders to apply with the FCC to participate in the auction. Though the auction itself won't start until January 24, 2008, Monday also marks the starting point for the FCC's <a href="http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=anti_collusion" id="wvps" title="anti-collusion rules">anti-collusion rules</a>, which prevent participants in the auction from discussing their bidding strategy with each other.<br /><br />These rules are designed to keep the auction process fair, by keeping bidders from cooperating in anticompetitive ways so as to drive the auction prices in artificial directions. While these rules primarily affect private communications among prospective bidders, the FCC historically has included all forms of public communications in its interpretation of these rules.<br /><br />All of this means that, as much as we would like to offer a step-by-step account of what's happening in the auction, the FCC's rules prevent us from doing so until the auction ends early next year. So here's a quick primer on how things will unfold:<br /><ul><li><b>December 3:</b> By Monday, would-be applicants must file their applications to participate in the auction (FCC Form 175), which remain confidential until the FCC makes them available.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Mid-December</b>: Once all the applications have been fully reviewed, the FCC will release a public list of eligible bidders in the auction. Each bidder must then make a monetary deposit no later than December 28, depending on which licenses they plan to bid on. The more spectrum blocks an applicant is deemed eligible to bid on, the greater the amount they must deposit.<br /><br /></li><li><b>January 24, 2008</b>: The auction begins, with each bidder using an electronic bidding process. Since this auction is anonymous (a rule that we think makes the auction more competitive and therefore better for consumers), the FCC will not publicly identify which parties have made which bid until after the auction is over.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Bidding rounds:</b> The auction bidding occurs in stages established by the FCC, with the likely number of rounds per day increasing as bidding activity decreases. The FCC announces results at the end of each round, including the highest bid at that point, the minimum acceptable bid for the following round, and the amounts of all bids placed during the round. The FCC does not disclose bidders' names, and bidders are not allowed to disclose publicly whether they are still in the running or not.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Auction end:</b> The auction will end when there are no new bids and all the spectrum blocks have been sold (many experts believe this auction could last until March 2008). If the reserve price of any spectrum block is not met, the FCC will conduct a re-auction of that block. Following the end of the auction, the FCC announces which bidders have secured licenses to which pieces of spectrum and requires winning bidders to submit the balance of the payments for the licenses.</li></ul>If you're interested in keeping track of the publicly available details of the auction, check out <a href="http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=auction_summary&id=73" id="cf.." title="this page on the FCC's website">this page on the FCC's website</a> or <a href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=FCC+spectrum+auction&ie=UTF-8" id="s3gh" title="Google News">Google News</a>. In the meantime, my lips will be sealed (something, frankly, that I'm not used to).

Who's going to win the spectrum auction? Consumers.

Posted by by Chris Sacca, Head of Special Initiatives Here at Google, we see the upcoming 700 megahertz spectrum auction at the Federal Comm...

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Google Gadgets on your Dashboard

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Rose Yao, Google Mac team</span><br /><br />A question everyone asked when we <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/search-your-mac-with-google-desktop.html" id="g8cr">launched </a> Google Desktop for the Mac was: where are the gadgets? Today, we have an answer: they're in your Dashboard! Now there's a new feature for Google Desktop, <a href="http://desktop.google.com/mac" id="u3tl">Google Gadgets for the Mac</a>, which is ready to install. With this launch, we're bringing hundreds of Google Gadgets to the Mac OS X platform. You can take advantage of gadgets to do things like <a href="http://desktop.google.com/plugins/i/youtubevideo.html?hl=en" id="bln.">browse YouTube videos</a>, <a href="http://desktop.google.com/plugins/i/flower.html?hl=en" id="e86:">nurture a virtual flower pot,</a> or <a href="http://desktop.google.com/plugins/i/gdcalendar.html?hl=en" id="h6m8" title="even check your day's agenda">even check your day's agenda</a> in Dashboard.<br /><br />Not only that, the new Google Gadgets applications let you add gadgets with one click and interact with them beside your Apple widgets in Dashboard. There's an automatic update to the gadget list each week, so you'll always have something new to look forward to.<br /><br />Watch the Gadget application in action:<br /><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/JR2QzoOXfTY&rel=1"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JR2QzoOXfTY&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br />Attention, gadget/widget developers: this launch makes it possible for you to write your gadget once and have it run on a Mac, a PC, and any webpage on the Internet. Learn more about <a href="http://desktop.google.com/dev/crossplatform.html">how to write a cross platform gadget</a>.

Google Gadgets on your Dashboard

Posted by Rose Yao, Google Mac team A question everyone asked when we launched Google Desktop for the Mac was: where are the gadgets? Today...

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The CNN/YouTube Republican Debate

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Steve Grove, Head of News and Politics, YouTube</span><br /><br />First up were the Democrats, and now it's the Republicans' turn. Tonight marks the much-anticipated CNN/YouTube Republican Debate, in which the 8 GOP candidates on our <a href="http://youtube.com/youchoose">You Choose '08</a> platform will descend on St. Petersburg, Florida to answer video questions submitted via YouTube. The two-hour debate will be aired live on CNN at 8 PM ET, and all the clips will be hosted <a href="http://youtube.com/debates">soon after</a> on YouTube.<br /><br />People submitted almost 5,000 questions (4,927, to be exact) to the GOP hopefuls right on YouTube -- 2,000 more than the <a href="http://youtube.com/democraticdebate">Democrats got</a> on July 23. In true YouTube style, some of the questions are creative, but most are compelling -- and demonstrate the concerns of voters trying to differentiate between the candidates in a crowded primary field.<br /><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Lz9Ma9pGTSs&rel=1&border=0"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Lz9Ma9pGTSs&rel=1&border=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br />Back in July, we broke new ground in presidential debates with our first-ever CNN/YouTube Debate. Thirty-nine questions were posed to the Democratic candidates, and when <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pw-oPjSeb4">Stephen Sixta asked a question</a> about whether or not the presidential contenders would speak directly to foreign dictators, a conflict broke out between Senators Obama and Clinton that has matured into the defining difference between these two front-runners in this campaign.<br /><br />The core concept behind these debates is to let real questions from real people drive the dialogue. The power of YouTube is that it lowers the barrier to entry to engage in the political process, and levels the platform for political discussion. It used to be that a voter had to live in Iowa, New Hampshire, or Florida to engage with the candidates at this stage of the campaign, but YouTube has broken down those barriers, and has brought more transparency and access to the political dialogue than ever before. We think that politics will never be the same (thankfully).

The CNN/YouTube Republican Debate

Posted by Steve Grove, Head of News and Politics, YouTube First up were the Democrats, and now it's the Republicans' turn. Tonight m...

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