Wiping out the next smallpox

<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >The Internet has had an enormous impact on people's lives around the world in the ten years since Google's founding. It has changed politics, entertainment, culture, business, health care, the environment and just about every other topic you can think of. Which got us to thinking, what's going to happen in the next ten years? How will this phenomenal technology evolve, how will we adapt, and (more importantly) how will it adapt to us? We asked ten of our top experts this very question, and during September (our 10th anniversary month) we are presenting <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Google%20at%2010">their responses</a>. As computer scientist Alan Kay has famously observed, the best way to predict the future is to invent it, so we will be doing our best to make good on our experts' words every day. - Karen Wickre and Alan Eagle, series editors</span><br /><br />It took more than a village: it took the entire world -- people of all races, countries and religions -- to eradicate smallpox. The final naturally occurring cases of "Variola major" in Bangladesh in 1978 and "Variola minor" in Somalia in 1977 marked the end to a chain of suffering and early death dating back to the Biblical plagues, and to Pharoah Ramses, who died from the very same disease. Since then we have continued to face countless pandemics -- the Black Death, cholera, and now bird flu, SARS, HIV/AIDS and a new generation of zoonotic diseases -- diseases that, often because of changes in population or climate, jump from animals to humans. We can't be sure where the next smallpox will emerge, but we can be sure that it will take an effort larger than any single person or organization to defeat it.<br /><br />Today there are some real heroes working to check off two more diseases from the list. The <a href="http://www.polioeradication.org/" id="jc72" title="World Health Organization">World Health Organization</a> has led the charge against the highly infectious disease of polio. Along with UNICEF and dozens of NGOs, and millions of national and local health workers, members of <a href="http://www.rotary.org/en/EndPolio/Pages/ridefault.aspx" id="dh2w" title="Rotary International">Rotary International</a> and volunteers from moms to Mullahs have stepped up to the plate and contained polio so that hundreds, not millions, of kids are paralyzed annually, but we cannot consider the case closed until we erase the last case, in the last country. The <a href="http://www.cartercenter.org/homepage.html" id="dtrd" title="Carter Center">Carter Center</a> has also accomplished a tremendous feat by leading the effort to shrink the cases of Guinea worm to the tens of thousands from the millions. Just as it took 150,000 health workers -- the world's unsung heroes -- to make one billion house calls in India searching for hidden cases of smallpox, it will take collaboration on a global scale to track and eliminate the next pandemic.<br /><br />There is no Nobel Prize for "Preventing a Pandemic," and the hardest part about working in this field is imagining the unimaginable. What will be the next SARS, the next ebola, the next H5N1 bird flu? Epidemiologists try to "out think" the massive numbers of permutations and combinations that may give rise to the newest threat to our lives. Chances are a microbe capable of sweeping the globe will emerge in the next decade or two, and chances are it will cross to humans from an animal host (as did SARS, the Spanish flu, and HIV/AIDS). We need new ways to find these emerging threats earlier in the process, before thousands are infected and the epidemic spirals out of control.<br /><br />Google.org's <a href="http://www.google.org/predict.html" id="pkfr" title="Predict and Prevent">Predict and Prevent</a> initiative is working with partners to use digital, genomic and IT technology to identify "hot spots" of emerging threats and provide early warning before they become global crises. When you're fighting a pandemic, early detection and early response can be the difference between dozens and hundreds of millions infected. What better birthday present could we offer the world after our 20th year, than to say we joined hands with a global movement and helped prevent the next smallpox?<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Dr. Larry Brilliant, Google.org</span>

Wiping out the next smallpox

The Internet has had an enormous impact on people's lives around the world in the ten years since Google's founding. It has changed ...

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The first Android-powered phone

Today, T-Mobile announced the <a href="http://www.t-mobileg1.com/" id="jmdz" title="world's first Android-powered phone">world's first Android-powered phone</a>. This marks an important milestone in the young history of Android. It was less than a year ago, on November 5, that the Open Handset Alliance, a group of more than 30 technology and mobile companies, <a href="http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/press_110507.html" id="bh8f" title="announced plans">announced plans</a> to create a complete mobile platform that would facilitate the development of advanced mobile applications and give users the best the web has to offer on a mobile device.<br /><br />Software developers are key to driving innovation on the web, and also for mobile. That's why, over the past year, we've released several early versions of the Software Developer Kit (SDK) and worked with developers from around the world to make it better and more complete. This has culminated in today's release of the Android 1.0 SDK R1. Through the SDK, developers have unprecedented access to the hardware and software capabilities of the device, enabling them to innovate freely. More than 1,700 applications were developed as part of the <a href="http://code.google.com/android/adc.html" id="atcv" title="Android Developer Challenge">Android Developer Challenge</a>. Google engineers have also been busy developing Android applications. Many of our products (Search, Gmail, and Maps, among others) are available on a wide range of phones such as the iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile devices, and many more. Today, they're also available on Android, and you can check out the <a href="http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2008/09/google-on-android.html" id="rz5x" title="Google Mobile blog">Google Mobile blog</a> for more details.<br /><br />But there's more to the Android story. Not only does it allow all applications open access to the phone's functionality; the platform itself will also be open. The Open Handset Alliance has announced its intention to open source the entire Android platform by the end of the year. Along with the other members of the Alliance, we hope that Android can provide a meaningful contribution to all players in the mobile ecosystem: the developers, the wireless carriers, the handset manufacturers, etc. Everyone will be free to adopt and adapt the technology as they see fit. By doing so, we hope that users will get better, more capable phones with powerful web browsers and access to a rich catalogue of innovative mobile applications.<br /><br />Developers will soon be able to distribute their applications to real handsets through the beta version of <a href="http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2008/08/android-market-user-driven-content.html" id="bqwf" title="Android Market (beta)">Android Market</a>. Handset manufacturers and wireless carriers will be able to incorporate Android innovations into their own new handsets and service offerings. And users will get better handsets and more choice. We think it's another step towards realizing the full potential of the mobile phone.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Erick Tseng, Lead Product Manager, Android Team<span><br /><br /></span></span>

The first Android-powered phone

Today, T-Mobile announced the world's first Android-powered phone . This marks an important milestone in the young history of Android. I...

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NYC transit directions have arrived

Today I'm happy to report we've taken a giant step in bringing public transit information to Google Maps. We've just added comprehensive transit info for the entire New York metro region, encompassing subway, commuter rail, bus and ferry services from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, New Jersey Transit and the City of New York. That means this information is now at the fingertips of the more than 20 million people who live in and around New York (not to mention the millions of people who visit the region every year). The MTA is the largest transportation agency in the U.S., serving one in every three users of mass transit in the country.<br /><br />Transit is a vital part of the infrastructure that makes cities run efficiently, and can help mitigate congestion, environmental concerns, and increasing energy costs. But until recently, access to that information has been more difficult than it needs to be. Even very prominent train and subway stations were often omitted entirely from maps in many cases. And as for bus lines, well, forget about it! This lead us to the fundamental goal of the <span style="border-collapse: collapse;font-family:arial;" ></span><a href="http://www.google.com/transit" id="pqol" title="Google Transit">Google Transit</a> project: make public transit information as easy to find as any other geographic information.<br /><br />We can only achieve this goal if we work closely with transit agencies around the globe to bring accurate and comprehensive transit information to everyone. Our role in this partnership is to bring all of this information together and make it easy to search and browse in interfaces that are simple, consistent and readily available.<br /><br />Thinking about the magnitude of today's launch, I can't help but think about how far we've come towards reaching our goal. It's been nearly two years to the day since I <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/happy-trails-with-google-transit.html">posted</a> about the expansion of the Google Transit trip planner (we added five more cities to our <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/public-transit-via-google.html">initial single-city launch</a> in Portland, Oregon). And in that post I included some statistics about how many people lived in a city covered by our product. At the time, our coverage was 6 U.S. cities. Now we cover more than 170 cities and countries across the globe, including about 70 cities in North America and 81 in China, plus cities in Europe and Australia and national coverage of Japan, Switzerland and Austria. And the number of people served annually by agencies was at about 6 million. Now it's hard to count precisely, but the number is at least at several hundred million (wow!).<br /><br />I would like to personally thank everyone at the agencies for their incredible level of enthusiasm for and commitment to the best interests of their riders.<br /><br />And to the riders: have fun! I hope you like the product as much as I do, and that it helps you get out and explore the world. To learn more about transit info in New York, head to <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/mpl?f=d&dirflg=r&q=Grand+Central+Station,+NYC&daddr=Grand+Central+Station,+NYC&z=12&ie=UTF8&moduleurl=http://maps.google.com/help/maps/transit/nyc/mapplet.html&mapclient=google&ll=40.730478,-73.976612&spn=0.102635,0.171318&utm_campaign=en&utm_medium=ha&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-gns-trs&utm_term=NYClp"><span>maps.google.com/nyc</span></a>.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Chris Harrelson, Tech Lead & Creator of Google Transit</span>

NYC transit directions have arrived

Today I'm happy to report we've taken a giant step in bringing public transit information to Google Maps. We've just added compr...

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Book Search spreads its wings with new partnerships and tools

You probably know that you can use <a href="http://books.google.com/">Google Book Search</a> to search the full text of books -- and that, thanks to universal search, you can find many of these books doing a regular Google search as well.<br /><br />Today, we're announcing a new set of partnerships and tools to bring even more books to the people who are looking for them. We've partnered with booksellers like Books-a-Million, Buy.com, and Borders.com to allow their customers to browse previews of books right on the retailer's website. We've also extended this functionality to libraries, publishers, and social book sites like GoodReads. And, to make sure we didn't miss anyone, we're releasing a powerful <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/books/">set of APIs</a>, which make it easier for web developers and site owners to enable this functionality on their own sites, as well.<br /><br />To read more, head on over to the <a href="http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2008/09/book-search-everywhere-with-new.html">Google Book Search blog</a>.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Tom Turvey, Google Book Search Partnerships Director</span>

Book Search spreads its wings with new partnerships and tools

You probably know that you can use Google Book Search to search the full text of books -- and that, thanks to universal search, you can fin...

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Building a future that's clean and green

<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >The Internet has had an enormous impact on people's lives around the world in the ten years since Google's founding. It has changed politics, entertainment, culture, business, health care, the environment and just about every other topic you can think of. Which got us to thinking, what's going to happen in the next ten years? How will this phenomenal technology evolve, how will we adapt, and (more importantly) how will it adapt to us? We asked ten of our top experts this very question, and during September (our 10th anniversary month) we are presenting <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Google%20at%2010">their responses</a>. As computer scientist Alan Kay has famously observed, the best way to predict the future is to invent it, so we will be doing our best to make good on our experts' words every day. - Karen Wickre and Alan Eagle, series editors</span><br /><br />At Grist.org they have a saying about climate change: "A frog in water doesn't feel it boil in time. Dude, we are that frog."<br /><br />It isn't very Googley to stand on the sidelines – whether the challenge involves search, apps, or clean energy. So we're working to be part of the solution. Specifically, we have embraced the challenge of developing a gigawatt of renewable electricity that is cheaper than electricity from coal – in years, not decades.(We call it RE<C. Not only is it a cool, nerdy name for the project, it breaks HTML pages everywhere.)<br /><br />In ten years, we envision a cleaner, greener world -- running on wind, solar, and steam - with clean cars plugged into a clean grid. But for that vision to become real, the technologies to power it will have to be economically competitive -- otherwise they won't scale. So we are focusing much of our effort on technology innovation to drive down the costs of key renewable technologies. We are fundamentally optimists -- we believe that when innovative people focus on the right problems, they can find solutions. And when renewable energy is cheaper than fossil-based alternatives, and when plug-in hybrids are as cheap as traditional cars, they will take off in the marketplace.<br /><br />Our company founders, Larry and Sergey, are engineers and when they encouraged our team to tackle this issue we knew they would prefer a technological approach. This summer, we welcomed at our Mountain View headquarters the first Google engineers dedicated exclusively to exploring the development of utility-scale clean energy at a price cheaper than coal.<br /><br />But we need a thousand groups of engineers focused on developing renewable energy - not just the team we're building at Google. That means we need government to set the right incentives and regulatory environment to foster clean energy innovation and R&D. Our team is also working to advance a policy agenda that stimulates clean energy projects.<br /><br />We're getting the word out about tax credits, government research funding, renewable portfolio standards, and the limitations of our current transmission grid. Our philanthropic arm is doing its part too. The climate team at Google.org is working to complement the work of our engineering team with grants and investments in clean energy projects. To date, we've invested over $45 million in breakthrough technologies like solar thermal, advanced wind, and enhanced geothermal systems.<br /><br />It will take the concerted efforts of many -- but dude, we don't need to be that frog.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Bill Weihl, Green Energy Czar</span>

Building a future that's clean and green

The Internet has had an enormous impact on people's lives around the world in the ten years since Google's founding. It has changed ...

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Now, read us in gadget form

Our corporate blog network is more than four years old now. We offer blogs about Google products and initiatives, local blogs (for 11 countries), blogs for advertisers and publishers, and a stable of blogs for developers. We hope you find the contents to be informative, timely, and, on occasion, fun.<br /><br />To help you keep track of our news and updates more easily, we've created a new <a href="http://www.google.com/press/blogs/directory.html#tab0">Blog Directory</a> (which links from the main page on this blog) and an <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/directory?url=www.google.com/ig/modules/google_blogs.xml" id="l5ai" title="iGoogle gadget">iGoogle gadget</a> so you can stay current right from your dashboard. If you'd prefer to read recent posts by category, install our <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/sharetab?source=stb&stid=102061219724857587790604ad50a1f9dd77039d0ff5a68b4a300&bpig=1" id="n4p3" title="iGoogle blog tab">iGoogle blog tab</a> (the customizable tab will load upon clicking), which will always show you the most recent blog updates by categories such as 'Open Source,' 'Mobile' or 'Publishers.' There are 16 categories, so you can pick and choose which ones to keep on your page after adding.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3ON3hgneWLZtgVRMIlJLlJdUBflXoOJCtmzpf72ehhHpdvWTsLM0OiAuqYopZL87Wyo8EVL90RGy5NduGZz1MPmPbFgxawn8-nFbKjg_S-4J8PTkUniVOXbA6qLR9Zs7uwCiJ2hwE1ux4/s1600-h/directory_menu.gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5247514859063189906" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3ON3hgneWLZtgVRMIlJLlJdUBflXoOJCtmzpf72ehhHpdvWTsLM0OiAuqYopZL87Wyo8EVL90RGy5NduGZz1MPmPbFgxawn8-nFbKjg_S-4J8PTkUniVOXbA6qLR9Zs7uwCiJ2hwE1ux4/s320/directory_menu.gif" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a>Software engineer Derek Collison built the gadget using the <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/ajax/" id="sm8i" title="AJAX APIs">AJAX APIs</a>. The current version is in beta; we plan to use the <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxlanguage/" id="yp4m" title="Language API">Language API</a> to roll out translations for the blogs in 13 languages other than English and add new interface and navigation options. Developer Ben Lisbakken built the tab, and webmaster extraordinaire Champika Fernando built the directory with help from graphic designer Ryan Germick. A heartfelt thanks for all of their contributions in making our blog family more 'universally accessible and useful.'<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Joscelin Cooper, Google Blog team</span>

Now, read us in gadget form

Our corporate blog network is more than four years old now. We offer blogs about Google products and initiatives, local blogs (for 11 countr...

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The democratization of data

<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >The Internet has had an enormous impact on people's lives around the world in the ten years since Google's founding. It has changed politics, entertainment, culture, business, health care, the environment and just about every other topic you can think of. Which got us to thinking, what's going to happen in the next ten years? How will this phenomenal technology evolve, how will we adapt, and (more importantly) how will it adapt to us? We asked ten of our top experts this very question, and during September (our 10th anniversary month) we are presenting <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Google%20at%2010">their responses</a>. As computer scientist Alan Kay has famously observed, the best way to predict the future is to invent it, so we will be doing our best to make good on our experts' words every day. - Karen Wickre and Alan Eagle, series editors</span><br /><br />Information technology has enabled the "democratization of data:" information that once was available to only a select few is now available to everyone. This is particularly true for small businesses.<br /><br />Fifteen years ago, only the big retailers could afford intelligent cash registers that tracked inventory and produced detailed daily reports. Nowadays cash registers are just PCs with a different user interface, and the smallest mom and pop retailer can track sales and inventory on a daily basis.<br /><br />A decade ago, only the big multinational corporations could afford systems to allow for international calling, videoconferencing, and document sharing. Now startups with a handful of people can use voice over IP, video, wikis and Google Docs to share information. These technological advances have led to the rise of "micro multinationals" which can leverage creativity and talent across the globe. Even tiny companies can now have a worldwide reach.<br /><br />These changes will have a profound effect on the global economy. According to the <a href="http://www.sba.gov/advo/stats/sbfaq.pdf" id="eocb" title="US Small Business Administration">U.S. Small Business Administration</a>, "small businesses represent 99.7 percent of all firms, they create more than half of the private nonfarm gross domestic product, and they create 60 to 80 percent of the net new jobs." Information technology has already had a huge effect on the productivity of large businesses, but the benefits from "trickle down productivity" may be even more significant.<br /><br />We think that Google can play a significant role in helping small businesses utilize the power of information technology. Our <a href="http://www.google.com/" id="zz5z1" title="search technology">search technology</a> provides answers to questions that only companies with large research libraries could answer decades ago. Our advertising programs allow small business to sell their wares to consumers around the world, as well as providing revenue opportunities for small publishers. <a href="http://docs.google.com/" id="zz5z5" title="Google docs">Google Docs</a> provides productivity tools for remote collaboration.<br /><br />Google also provides data for business intelligence that only large companies were able to afford a few years ago. For example, <a href="http://www.google.com/insights/search" id="ygzm" title="Google Trends">Google Trends</a> can help businesses track the popularity of specific queries, enabling them to identify new business opportunities. <a href="http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer" id="rgqc" title="Website Optimzer">Website Optimizer</a> allows businesses to test different versions of a website to see which one works best. Rather than waiting a month for a sales report, businesses can instantly learn of spikes in traffic to their website using <a href="http://trends.google.com/websites" id="o5ab" title="Trends for Websites">Trends for Websites</a>. All these services are available for free, allowing even the smallest businesses to make use of these tools.<br /><br />Technology available to large firms has traditionally trickled down to smaller enterprises, making it relatively easy to forecast the sorts of capabilities will become available to small businesses in the future. We just have to ask: what can big companies do now that small companies can't currently afford?<br /><ul id="aa60"><li id="aa600">Today, only the largest companies can afford to hire consultants and experts. In the future, even small companies will be able to purchase on-demand expertise and other services via the Internet.</li><li id="lv39">Today, marketing intelligence are costly reports describing data many months or years old. In the future, small businesses will have access to real-time data on market conditions.<br /></li><li id="aa601">Today, only the largest companies can run expensive experiments with their advertising campaigns. In the future, even small business will be able to run carefully controlled marketing experiments that will enable them to better reach their potential customers.</li><li id="aa602">Today, only large companies can sell products in many countries. Tomorrow, businesses of any size can use online services and outsourced logistics to buy and sell in every corner of the globe.</li></ul>Google will be a part of this global economy, helping both large and small companies to grow their markets and manage their information. Exciting times are ahead!<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Hal Varian, Chief Economist</span>

The democratization of data

The Internet has had an enormous impact on people's lives around the world in the ten years since Google's founding. It has changed ...

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