Pakistan has been struck by the worst flooding in its recorded history. The latest estimate of the number of people affected by the flood exceeds 14 million —more than the combined total of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Critical infrastructure has been damaged over the last two weeks and clean water is in short supply. As monsoons approach, flooding is expected to worsen. Our Crisis Response team has been working to use existing tools and build new ones to help the relief efforts. We just launched a page in Urdu and English where you can find information, resources and donation opportunities to help the victims of the floods. We’re also donating $250,000 to international and local NGOs to immediately aid in relief efforts. Although we’ve been able to provide satellite imagery for disasters in the past, cloud cover in Pakistan has prevented us from compiling useful imagery so far. We hope to share imagery as soon as possible. We’ve already learned a lot about building useful tools from our previous efforts to help with disaster relief. Following the earthquake in Haiti, a small team of Googlers visited relief aid workers in Haiti to understand how we could further help. In observing and speaking with the relief aid workers, we learned that they needed up-to-date information about available resources (such as which field hospitals have X-ray machines or orthopedic surgeons), their location and contact information. Coordination between various health and relief facilities that spring up in a disaster zone can be challenging. Based on what we learned in Haiti, we’ve been working to develop Resource Finder , a new tool to help disseminate updated information about which services various health facilities offer. It provides a map with editable records to help relief workers maintain up-to-date information on the services, doctors, equipment and beds available at neighboring health facilities so that they can efficiently arrange patient transfers. We normally wouldn’t release the tool so quickly, but decided to make an early release version of Resource Finder available for supporting relief efforts in Pakistan. This is the first time the tool is being launched during a disaster situation so we’ll be working closely with NGOs to understand its usefulness and will iterate accordingly. We’ve also launched Person Finder in both Urdu and English for this disaster. This application allows individuals to check and post on the status of relatives or friends affected by a disaster. Fortunately, we’ve heard that missing persons has not been as concerning an issue as it was during the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, but we’ll leave the application up regardless. Responding to a disaster of this scale is a daunting task, but we can all do something to help. We will try to do our part and continue working with the many incredible NGOs to develop tools that help them work more effectively. Posted by Ka-Ping Yee, Software Engineer, Google.org

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Responding to the floods in Pakistan

(Cross-posted from the Lat Long Blog ) What do Alex Trebek, teachers and Googlers have in common? Last week, these individuals and groups all came together at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA to celebrate exploration and learning. Google hosted its first Geo Teachers Institute, an intensive two-day workshop in which 150 educators received hands-on training and experience with Google Maps, Google SketchUp and Google Earth, including features like Mars, Moon and SkyMaps. Attendees from around the globe not only learned how these products work, but also discovered tips and resources for introducing these tools to students and using them to conceptualize, visualize, share and communicate about the world around them. Through this event, teachers were hopefully inspired to bring the world’s geographic information to students in compelling, fresh and fun ways. John Hanke, VP of Product Management, addressing the audience of educators As part of our continued effort to collaborate with teachers and help students get a better sense of places across the globe, we also announced that Google Earth Pro is now available to educators for free through the Google Earth for Educators site . Educators from higher educational and academic institutions who demonstrate a need for the Pro features in their classrooms can now apply for single licenses for themselves or site licenses for their computer labs. A similar program exists for SketchUp Pro through the Google SketchUp Pro Statewide License Grant , which is currently being provided via grants to 11 states, and available to all others at the K-12 level at no cost. In conjunction with these exciting Geo-related events and announcements, the Geo Education team also thought it’d be timely and fun to test Googlers’ geographic knowledge by hosting the company’s first ever Google Geo Bee. With help from National Geographic, 68 teams relived their school years and took a written geography exam, competing for a spot on stage with Alex Trebek, who hosted the main event. The competition was based on the group version of the National Geographic Bee for students, which Google has sponsored for the past two years. Questions included those like “Which country contains most of the Balkan Mountains, which mark the boundary between the historical regions of Thrace and Moesia?” and “Ben Nevis, the highest peak in the United Kingdom, is located in which mountain chain?” The winners of our Google Geo Bee: Ian Sharp, Marcus Thorpe and Rob Harford The final three Google teams (the Tea-Drinking Imperialists, the Geoids and the Titans) all showed off their geographic literacy and answered a plethora of diverse and complex questions. In the end, it was the Tea-Drinkers who emerged the winners when they figured out that Mecca was the answer to the clue, “Due to this city’s location on a desert trading route, many residents were merchants, the most famous of whom was born around A.D. 570.” And they didn’t just walk away with bragging rights; thanks to Sven Linblad from Linblad Expeditions , they also won an amazing adventure trip to either the Arctic, the Galapagos or Antarctica. Through all of these education efforts — for teachers, students and grown-up Googlers alike — we hope people of all ages never stop exploring. Posted by Tina Ornduff, Geo Education Team

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Alex Trebek, teachers and Googlers unite at the Google Geo Teachers Institute

Humans have always been fascinated by the night sky. And Googlers are no exception. Over the years, Google engineers have used their 20 percent time to create Google Sky, Moon, Mars and most recently Google Sky Map for Android . This handy app, built by engineers in our Pittsburgh office , turns your Android-powered phone into a live map of the night sky. You just point your phone to the sky and it gives you information about the stars and planets that you’re looking at. Since we introduced the app a year ago, Sky Map has been downloaded more than 5 million times. On Sunday night we had a wonderful opportunity to share our passion for astronomy with our community in Pittsburgh at the Deep Sky Urban Star Party , held in the abandoned swimming pool at Leslie Park in Lawrenceville . We loaded up a bunch of Android phones with Sky Map and joined the Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh —who brought along their telescopes—and several hundred local residents for a night of stargazing. As a Sky Map engineer the biggest thrill I get is when we get emails from people who have used our app to show a planet to their children for the first time. At the Star Party we were delighted to have the chance to show people around the night sky in person. It was great to meet so many people who were both excited by astronomy and interested in Google’s technology. Thanks for all of your ideas for new features, and a big thank you to the Leslie Park Pool Collective and all involved for organizing such a fun event. Photos by Jason Parker-Burlingham Posted by John Taylor, Software Engineer

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Stargazing in Pittsburgh

As a former professional cyclist, nothing beats the thrill of being in the peloton and racing towards the finish line. Although I’ve traded in my cycling career for life as a Googler, I’m still a fan and enjoy watching my former teammates and friends battle in races like the Tour de France , which started on Saturday. While the cyclists were preparing to tackle the pave of Arrenberg and the Cols in the Alps, I got to thinking about ways that we can bring that experience to the hundreds of millions of fans who will be following the Tour de France over the next few weeks. Google is home to many other cycling enthusiasts , so we got together to work on ways to build a My Tracks-based gadget that will allow all the other fans to follow the action like never before. The My Tracks application for Android phones lets you record and share your own outdoor activities, and now Team HTC-Columbia will use a special version of the app with SRM to transmit their telemetry and location in real-time as they make their way through the 3,642 kilometers of the Tour de France. The nine riders (sadly, now eight, as Adam Hanson was injured on Sunday) on Team HTC-Columbia are carrying HTC Legend phones with ANT+ that use My Tracks to capture their location along with their power, heart rate, cadence and speed. On www.google.com/mytrackstour , you’ll see a Google Map showing the team members’ location on the course and a detailed telemetry report. You can observe how Michael Rogers’ heart rate spikes as he attacks the climbs in the Alps on Stage 9, see how many watts Mark Cavendish puts out in the sprint on the famous sprinters’ stage into Bordeaux, and see just how fast riders climb the famous Col du Tourmalet . From the image above, you can see how Maxime Monfort took the lead during Stage 2 between Bruxelles and Spa yesterday. Right now, the riders are racing in Stage 3, which takes them across the border into France and you can follow all the latest action on our website or directly on your own iGoogle page . The team also built a map gadget that is available for you to embed on your own website or blog. We’re also publishing an API that any web developer or broadcaster can use to build their own custom application or use to enhance the live television coverage. I’m excited about the potential for web developers and broadcasters to make use of the API and data in creative ways to help all the Tour de France followers (myself included!) get even closer to the action. This project was the work of many Googlers in their 20% time, and as cycling fans ourselves, we’re happy to be able to share it with the world. We hope you enjoy this unique way of following Team HTC-Columbia over the next few weeks. Posted by Dylan Casey, Product Manager

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Follow Team HTC-Columbia on Google Maps

This month, Googlers around the world participated in GoogleServe—an annual event in which Google employees take a break from their day jobs to re-connect with local communities and give back through service projects. Over 6,000 Googlers from 65 offices in 27 countries spent time in activities ranging from helping the elderly get online and consulting with organizations on their social-media strategies to tidying up public parks and playing with dogs waiting to be rehomed. GoogleServe began in 2008 as an employee-driven initiative and is organized almost entirely by volunteers. For the 2010 event, we partnered with hundreds of community organizations, schools and governments to help meet local needs around the world. Here’s a taste of some of this year’s projects: We tilled soil and planted seedlings at Gaining Ground in Concord, Massachusetts We packed food bags for families living under the breadline at Resala in Cairo, Egypt and delivered meals to the needy in San Francisco, California with the Salvation Army We trained senior citizens in Dublin, Ireland and Santa Monica, California to engage more effectively in the online world We cleaned kitty condos in Milpitas, California at the Humane Society of Silicon Valley and repaired a road leading to the animal shelter at Tier-Asyl Hübeli , in Zurich, Switzerland We cleaned rooms, tended gardens and helped out on art projects at Singapore’s Association of the Visually Handicapped We repaired playground equipment in Hamburg, Germany, painted classrooms in Johannesburg, South Africa and folded 1,000 origami cranes for sick children in Tokyo, Japan Check out our album below to see some of our employees and partners in action. And if you’d like to join us in service to your community, websites like All For Good can help you find volunteer opportunities near you. Posted by Seth Marbin, GoogleServe Global Director

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GoogleServe 2010: Celebrating community service worldwide

I’ve always thought that beehives are organized similarly to how we do things here at Google. Bees have a flat management structure and they adapt quickly and change roles throughout their career (nurse, guard, foragers, quality control, etc.) depending on demands. And the bees that collect nectar from the forager bees at the entrance to the hive also scrutinize it for quality. If it’s not high enough, they send the foragers back out to get a fresh start… it reminds me a bit of a Google code review! If Google’s a beehive, then I’m what you might call a forager. I work on the culinary team and we strive to serve food that’s produced locally and grown in a sustainable manner. But we wanted to take the effort to the next level. So, with help from the Marin Bee Company , we’ve installed four hives of bees to help us be as self-sufficient as possible. The four hives—collectively known as the Hiveplex, of course—are each painted in one of Google’s colors. We’ve placed them close to large areas of wild flowers on our campus, far enough away that anyone who isn’t fond of bees can easily avoid them, but close enough that anyone who wants to can walk over and watch them at work. Many Googlers have signed up to contribute to beekeeping and honey extraction efforts, and, come the harvest in the fall, we’ll round the season off with a series of cooking classes and candle-making sessions for all those who have signed up to help. With this project, we’re also hoping to raise awareness of impact of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)—a phenomenon in which worker bees abandon the hive for reasons that aren’t fully understood. This has has become a cause of global concern and in some parts of the world more than 50 percent of the hives have been found abandoned. This has grave implications for us all as bees are responsible for pollinating approximately 70 percent of the fruit and vegetables we eat. The loss of bees has serious consequences for plants, wildlife and human survival. (You can read more here .) To see our newest colleagues at work, check out the album below. Someday we might create a Buzz account for our bees so you can all track their progress and follow our bee keeping activities—but we promise not to drone on. Posted by Marc Rasic, Executive Chef

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Hello from the Hiveplex

Although it feels like summer in many parts of the world, this week much of the North American sports community is focused squarely on ice hockey. That’s because the Stanley Cup Finals between the Chicago Blackhawks and Philadelphia Flyers kicked off over the weekend. Today, the series shifts to Philadelphia, and the Flyers look to even the series. We’ve always shared the world’s interest in ice hockey, and have expressed that through our 2010 Olympic Ice Hockey doodle , NHL scores in search results and our content partnership with the NHL on YouTube . And this year a few Googlers in Chicago tried to grow their own playoff beards to get in the spirit of the games. We see a surge of search queries related to the Stanley Cup every May, and this year is no exception. As each of the two teams get closer to hoisting Lord Stanley’s cup , we’re taking a look at what people from Chicago and Philadelphia as well as around the world are searching for related to the Cup. Globally, searches for [blackhawks] trump searches for [flyers] in the sports category although both are experiencing an unprecedented spike compared to past years. In both Philadelphia and Chicago , the [blackhawks] and [flyers] were top of mind last week: Top sports searches in Philadelphia Top sports searches in Chicago Searches for [patrick kane] of the Chicago Blackhawks lead the way among searches for players involved in the Stanley Cup Finals. After each goal scored in Chicago, the Blackhawks play the song “Chelsea Dagger” by the Fratellis. Accordingly, searches for [chelsea dagger] are surging , with Google users in Illinois topping the list and sparking a resurgence of the song across America. With Googlers in our offices in both Illinois and Pennsylvania, we’ll be watching like the rest of the world to see who wins the greatest trophy in sports. Just make sure you don’t touch the Cup until you actually win it! Posted by Jim Lecinski, Managing Director, U.S. Sales (and rabid Blackhawks fan)

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Searching for the 2010 Stanley Cup

(Cross-posted to the Google Public Policy Blog ) In 1978, people told Douglas Twiddy he was crazy when he started renting out vacation homes in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. More than 30 years later, his son Ross is using our AdWords advertising program to help attract prospective renters — and grow his small business, Twiddy . Thanks in part to AdWords, in just the past two years the company has added 100 new homes to its listings and hired 16 full-time employees, and it brings on another 50 seasonal employees each year. This week is National Small Business Week , and Ross will be with me on Capitol Hill in Washington today to share his story and help unveil something that means a tremendous amount to me: a new report detailing, for the first time ever, Google’s economic impact in all 50 states. People think of Google first and foremost as a search engine, but it’s also an engine of economic growth. In our report, we’re announcing that in 2009 we generated a total of $54 billion of economic activity for American businesses, website publishers and non-profits. Over the years people have asked us whether we could quantify our economic impact on a state level, and we’re pleased to do that for the first time with this report, which you can download at google.com/economicimpact . In a time of tighter budgets and a slow economic recovery, we’re glad to support so many small businesses and entrepreneurs across the country by helping them find new customers more efficiently and monetize their websites through targeted advertising. Here’s a video from me and our Chief Economist, Hal Varian, with more background on where we get the numbers: The report is filled with really wonderful stories about the direct economic impact that AdWords, AdSense, Google Grants and our search engine have across the country. These are the stories of entrepreneurs across the country growing their businesses with Google. And this morning Googlers are hosting events in 10 other cities across the country (Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Oakland, Portland (OR), Raleigh and Seattle) to help share those stories. Ladies and gentlemen, start your economic engines! Posted by Claire Hughes Johnson, Vice President, Global Online Sales

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Google’s U.S. economic impact

I’m incredibly happy that Google has added the option to search over SSL by going to https://www.google.com/ — note the “s” in “https.” I’m writing this blog post in a hotel right now because I’m in Europe for a week doing a series of tech talks, but I could just as easily be working down at local Dublin cafe with an open WiFi hotspot. In both cases, I might want to do a private search that the hotel or local cafe can’t see. A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connection provides an encrypted tunnel between my browser and Google, so other people can’t sniff what I’m searching for. I believe encrypted search is an important option for Google searchers. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has asked for secure search in the past ( see this post from 2009 ), and I credit them for helping to put this on Google’s radar. Another inspiration that helped to spark this project was Cory Doctorow’s book “Little Brother.” It was one of my favorite books of 2008 and while I won’t go into the book’s plot here, it’s a quick, fun read. “Little Brother” also makes a compelling case for encrypting HTTP traffic on the web. Some people don’t yet fully understand how SSL search works. I saw one commenter say “ If they still pass in the search parameters in the URL (Get), what’s the point? People can still see what you queried, if they made them “post” messages it might actually do something. ” It’s important to realize that even though you as a surfer can see the query in the url, the sites between your browser and Google can’t. Google OS demonstrated that by sniffing a regular HTTP query and an HTTPS query in Wireshark to show that the query can’t be seen going over the wire . Thanks to all the people at Google who did the all the hard work and heavy lifting to deliver this. One of the main engineers behind the effort was Evan Roseman, a member of the webspam team who you might have met at previous search conferences. In fact, Evan was originally scheduled to be on our site review session at Google I/O this past Thursday, but we decided that launching SSL search took priority. I also wanted to say thanks and congratulations to the other Googlers (for example Andrew Widdowson and Murali Viswanathan, but also many, many others) who generously gave their time and effort to make the launch happen and happen smoothly. You might think that switching on SSL for websearch is easy, but for a website with the complexity and scale of Google, it’s really not. The launch wouldn’t have happened without a ton of assistance from Googlers from many parts of the company, and I sincerely appreciate it. I hope you enjoy https://www.google.com and find it useful.

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A few thoughts on SSL Search

Most days, I bike to work. No spandex, no special shoes; just me and my cruiser (and a basket on the back for my laptop). It’s about 4.5 miles door to door. Now, I give mad props to the folks who bike from San Francisco to Google every week. But biking to work is for regular folks, too. It feels great: the exercise, the fresh air and doing something “green”, all while giving my brain time to warm up for — or decompress after — a hectic work day. So how can we get more people who live right around Google offices to get off their good intentions and on to their bikes? Well, we did recently release biking directions on Google Maps (including on mobile phones !) but in case that wasn’t enough motivation, there’s no better time to try than on Bike to Work Day! We celebrated Bay Area Bike to Work Day this past Thursday at Google’s HQ (as usual, Northern California’s date was ahead of U.S. National Bike to Work Day ). The rest of our offices will take up the bike-commuting cause at the end of this week and into next week, from Bangalore to Zurich. Last year, 42 Google offices participated in Bike to Work Day — and we hope to top that this time around. To prepare for Bay Area Bike to Work day, our employees hosted a How to Bike to Work tech talk and volunteered time at a free bike repair clinic . Those Googlers repaired over 40 bikes in 2.5 hours — not bad for an all-volunteer outfit. And we had a whole pile of volunteer group ride leaders plan to lead 20 different rides in from all over the Bay, to help folks get to work safely and in style. Last year, we aimed for 1,000 riders globally, and beat that handily (1,322 riders total). So we decided to raise the stakes and shoot for 1,000 in Northern California alone. And we did it: 1,019 riders to our Mountain View, San Bruno, and San Francisco offices. That’s a new record for Google and almost five percent of our total employee population! The longest ride was 71 miles…from Palo Alto. ( Via Pescadero . That’s what we call taking the loooong route.) The Santa Cruz crew came straight in and went 55 miles one way…and some of them were talking about biking home, too! 172 Googlers came in from San Francisco — but thanks to Google’s extensive shuttle system, most of them can get a lift back home. The largest turnout came from Mountain View, of course — 272 folks came from right around the ‘plex. Considering more riders came from SF than Mountain View last year, our super-locals had some pride to win back! For me, the highlights included free massages , furry friends , tiny companions , a skeleton , a unicycle and the Warp Speed Conference Bike team who rode a 400+lb contraption all the way in from Redwood City. (Witness also the classiest bike jersey ever .) Oh, and seeing our smiling CFO check in, who biked in even though it was Shareholder Day on campus! Not to mention a certain founder with his solar-panel backpack. But the real joy was hearing all the people who said, “You know, I never thought I could do it. But it wasn’t so hard after all! I will definitely do it again.” That’s what Bike to Work Day is all about. Overall, we had tons of fun spreading the bike-commute love here in Mountain View, and we can’t wait to see what our fellow Googlers get up to all around the world. Maybe we’ll even hit our stretch goal: 2010 riders in 2010! In the meantime, check out our photos from Thursday’s party-on-wheels to get psyched for your own ride to work. Posted by Deb Henigson, Workplace Services Program Manager

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Celebrating Bike to Work Day(s)