Official Blog
Insights from Googlers into our products, technology, and the Google culture
A first step toward more global email
August 5, 2014
Cross-posted on the
Official Gmail Blog
Whether your email address is firstname.lastname@ or something more expressive like corgicrazy@, an email address says something about who you are. But from the start, email addresses have always required you to use non-accented Latin characters when signing up. Less than half of the world’s population has a mother tongue that uses the Latin alphabet. And even fewer people use only the letters A-Z. So if your name (or that of your favorite pet) contains accented characters (like “José Ramón”) or is written in another script like Chinese or Devanagari, your email address options are limited.
But all that could change. In 2012, an organization called the
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
created a new email
standard
that supports addresses with non-Latin and accented Latin characters (e.g. 武＠メール.グーグル). In order for this standard to become a reality, every email provider and every website that asks you for your email address must adopt it. That’s obviously a tough hill to climb. The technology is there, but someone has to take the first step.
Today we're ready to be that someone. Starting now, Gmail (and shortly, Calendar) will recognize addresses that contain accented or non-Latin characters. This means Gmail users can send emails to, and receive emails from, people who have these characters in their email addresses. Of course, this is just a first step and there’s still a ways to go. In the future, we want to make it possible for you to use them to create Gmail accounts.
Last month, we announced
the addition of 13 new languages
in Gmail. Language should never be a barrier when it comes to connecting with others and with this step forward, truly global email is now even closer to becoming a reality.
Posted by Pedro Chaparro Monferrer, Software Engineer
Transparency Report: Protecting emails as they travel across the web
June 3, 2014
When you mail a letter to your friend, you hope she’ll be the only person who reads it. But a lot could happen to that letter on its way from you to her, and prying eyes might try to take a look. That’s why we send important messages in sealed envelopes, rather than on postcards.
Email works in a similar way. Emails that are
encrypted
as they’re routed from sender to receiver are like sealed envelopes, and less vulnerable to snooping—whether by bad actors or through government surveillance—than postcards.
But some email is more secure than others. So to help you better understand whether your emails are protected by encryption, we’re launching a
new section
in the
Transparency Report
.
Gmail has always supported encryption in transit by using
Transport Layer Security
(TLS), and will
automatically encrypt
your incoming and outgoing emails if it can. The important thing is that
both
sides of an email exchange need to support encryption for it to work; Gmail can't do it alone.
Our data show that approximately 40 to 50 percent of emails sent between Gmail and other email providers aren’t encrypted. Many providers have turned on encryption, and others have said they’re going to, which is great news. As they do, more and more emails will be shielded from snooping.
For people looking for even stronger email security,
end-to-end encryption
is a good option—but it’s been hard to use. So today we’re making available the source code for
End-to-End
, a Chrome extension. It's currently in testing, and once it's ready for general use it will make this technology easier for those who choose to use it.
We encourage you to find tips about
choosing strong passwords
and
adding another layer of protection
to your account in our
Safety Center
. And check out
Reset the Net
, a broad coalition of organizations, companies and individuals coming together this week to promote stronger security practices on the web; we’re happy to be a participant in that effort.
Posted by Brandon Long, Tech Lead, Gmail Delivery Team
A new learning environment at Mater Dei in Brazil
May 29, 2014
We launched Google Apps for Education because we believed it would help students learn more collaboratively and help educators spend less time on administration and more time on teaching. It’s been thrilling to see how some schools take “
going Google
” to the next level and into their own hands—coming up with even more creative ways of incorporating technology in education. Recently we came across one of these schools:
Colégio Mater Dei in Brazil
.
In 2013, Mater Dei deployed Google Apps for Education as part of a move to incorporate technology into the academic environment. After they started to see early results, they came to Google with a plan: create a space on campus that’s designed from the ground up to be a technology-powered learning center for K-12 students. Last week, that idea became a reality when Mater Dei launched what we’re now calling the Google Learning Space.
Transforming a part of their campus that used to be a traditional library, the school set up a high-performance wireless network in a room full of bright, colorful cushions and chairs where students can brainstorm, meet to discuss projects and talk with their teachers. There are two smart TVs with Chromecast installed, so students can project assignments, presentations and videos easily. There's a library of tablets and Chromebooks that students can use, all featuring Google Play and Google Apps.
High school history students collaborate on tablets in the Google Learning Space
The school’s ultimate goal is to increase collaboration amongst students and encourage them to think more creatively instead of learning by rote memorization. And so far, the results seem to be good—the school is already experimenting with new ways to teach and learn. For example, kindergarten teachers are helping students “visit” countries around the world with Google Earth and the Cultural Institute. Electronics teacher Andre Godoy is using Google Sites and Google Glass to help his students build a formula that can move a robot with a swipe of the finger. And biology teachers have started using the Google Play app Biodigital Human to help bring anatomy to life in 3D; students can add, remove and manipulate each organ of the body using the app, gaining an understanding of various diseases and how treatments are developed. Best of all, students and teachers seem more energized and excited to participate in class.
Grade school students work with interactive biology apps from the Google Play Store
The Google Learning Space is just one example of how bringing technology into the classroom can have a real and immediate impact on both teachers and students. We’re excited to keep working on products that can help kids learn—in Brazil and around the world.
Posted by Milton Larsen Burgese, Google Head of Education, Google Brazil
Previewing a new Classroom
May 6, 2014
As a former high school math teacher, I know all too well that teachers spend a ton of valuable time doing things other than teaching—waking up early to grade quizzes, collecting and returning piles of paper assignments, and battling copy machine paper jams. But with today’s technology it doesn’t have to be this way. Many teachers and professors have found ways to use technology to be better educators and avoid busy work. We spent the past year working closely with many educators to understand the systems they use to simplify their workloads, so they can get back to doing what they love—teaching.
Today, in honor of
Teacher Appreciation Day
, we’re announcing a preview of
Classroom
, a new, free tool in the
Google Apps for Education
suite. It helps teachers create and organize assignments quickly, provide feedback efficiently, and communicate with their classes with ease. Classroom is based on the principle that educational tools should be simple and easy to use, and is designed to give teachers more time to teach and students more time to learn.
With Classroom, you'll be able to:
Create and collect assignments:
Classroom weaves together Google Docs, Drive and Gmail to help teachers create and collect assignments paperlessly. They can quickly see who has or hasn't completed the work, and provide direct, real-time feedback to individual students.
Improve class communications:
Teachers can make announcements, ask questions and comment with students in real time—improving communication inside and outside of class.
Stay organized:
Classroom automatically creates Drive folders for each assignment and for each student. Students can easily see what’s due on their Assignments page.
We know that protecting your students’ privacy is critical. Like the rest of our Apps for Education services, Classroom
contains no ads
, never uses your content or student data for advertising purposes, and is free for schools.
Starting today, teachers and professors can
apply for a preview
of Classroom. Based on the requests we receive, we’ll be inviting a limited number of educators to try Classroom in about a month. By September, Classroom will be available to any school using Google Apps for Education. Since we want to make sure Classroom plays well with others, if you’re a developer or partner,
sign up
to learn more about integrating with Classroom.
We’ve been working with more than a dozen pilot schools and universities to try out Classroom and provide feedback—and we can’t thank them enough. We can’t wait to hear your feedback, and to work together to make Classroom even better.
Posted by Zach Yeskel, Product Manager, Classroom
New mobile apps for Docs, Sheets and Slides—work offline and on the go
April 30, 2014
Every year, phones and tablets get better, and more of you are starting to use your mobile devices not just to view, but also to create and edit content. And while the Drive app is a convenient place to store your stuff, we want to make it easier for you to quickly find, edit and create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations on the go. Starting today, you can download new, standalone mobile apps for
Docs
and
Sheets
—with
Slides
coming soon. Need to find a spreadsheet? Go to the Sheets app. Need to create a document? Go to the Docs app. They’re all right there at your fingertips.
When you open the new apps, you’ll see your most recently edited files, which means less time searching and scrolling.
The apps also come with offline support built in, so you can easily view, edit and create files without an Internet connection. Now, if you have a brilliant idea for a best-selling novel while traipsing through the Amazonian rainforest (or you know, something more probable, like during flight takeoff)...no problem. You can jot down your idea in the Docs app on your phone, even when you’re offline.
You can get the apps on Google Play [
Docs
] [
Sheets
] and in the App Store [
Docs
] [
Sheets
]. If you don’t have time now, over the next few days you’ll be prompted to download the apps when you go to edit or create a document or spreadsheet in your Drive app. And of course, you’ll still be able to use the Drive app to view and organize all of your documents, spreadsheets, presentations, photos and more.
So enjoy the Amazon—we’re looking forward to buying that novel someday. And in the meantime, just remember: even if a crocodile eats your phone, your files are safe in the cloud!
Posted by Brian Levee, Product Manager
Staying at the forefront of email security and reliability: HTTPS-only and 99.978 percent availability
March 20, 2014
Your email is important to you, and making sure it stays safe and always available is important to us. As you go about your day reading, writing and checking messages, there are tons of security measures running behind the scenes to keep your email safe, secure, and there whenever you need it.
Starting today, Gmail will always use an encrypted HTTPS connection when you check or send email. Gmail has
supported HTTPS
since the day it launched, and in 2010 we made
HTTPS the default
. Today's change means that no one can listen in on your messages as they go back and forth between you and Gmail’s servers—no matter if you're using public WiFi or logging in from your computer, phone or tablet.
In addition, every single email message you send or receive—100 percent of them—is encrypted while moving internally. This ensures that your messages are safe not only when they move between you and Gmail's servers, but also as they move between Google's data centers—something we made a top priority after last summer’s revelations.
Of course, being able to access your email is just as important as keeping it safe and secure. In 2013, Gmail was available 99.978 percent of the time, which averages to less than two hours of disruption for a user for the entire year. Our engineering experts look after Google's services 24x7 and if a problem ever arises, they're on the case immediately. We keep you informed by posting updates on the
Apps Status Dashboard
until the issue is fixed, and we always conduct a full analysis on the problem to prevent it from happening again.
Our commitment to the security and reliability of your email is absolute, and we’re constantly working on ways to improve. You can learn about additional ways to keep yourself safe online, like
creating strong passwords
and
enabling 2-step verification
, by visiting the Security Center:
https://www.google.com/help/security
.
Posted by Nicolas Lidzborski, Gmail Security Engineering Lead
Cross-posted from the
Official Gmail Blog
Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings
February 6, 2014
The best meetings are face-to-face—we can brainstorm openly, collaborate closely and make faster decisions. But these days, we often connect with each other from far-flung locations, coordinating time zones and dialing into conference calls from our phones. Meetings need to catch up with the way we work—they need to be face-to-face, easier to join, and available from anywhere and any device. Starting today, they can be: Any company can upgrade their meeting rooms with a new Chromebox, built on the Chrome principles of speed, simplicity and security.
Chromebox for meetings
brings together Google+ Hangouts and Google Apps in an easy-to-manage Chromebox, making it simpler for any company to have high-definition video meetings. Here are a few highlights:
Instant meeting room
. Chromebox for meetings comes with a blazing-fast Intel Core i7-based Chromebox, a high-definition camera, a combined microphone and speaker unit and a remote control. Set up your entire room in minutes and easily manage all meeting rooms from a web-based management console. All you need is the display in your room, and you’re good to go.
Simpler and faster meetings
. Walk into the room, click the remote once and you’re instantly in the meeting. No more complex dial-in codes, passcodes or leader PINs. Share your laptop screen wirelessly, no need for any cords and adaptors. Integration with Google Apps makes it easy to invite others and add rooms to video meetings, directly from Google Calendar.
Meetings with anyone, anywhere
. Up to 15 participants can join the video meeting from other conference rooms, their laptops, tablets or smartphones. Need to meet with a customer who doesn’t use Chromebox for meetings? That’s easy too—all they need is a Gmail account. You can also connect to rooms that have traditional video conferencing systems using a new tool from
Vidyo
, and participants who prefer phones can join your meeting with a conference call number from
UberConference
.
Chromebox for meetings is available in the U.S. today starting at $999, which includes the ASUS Chromebox and everything you need to get going. That means for the same price that companies have typically paid for one meeting room, they'll be able to outfit 10 rooms—or more. CDW and SYNNEX will help bring Chromebox for meetings to customers and resellers, and Chromeboxes from HP and Dell will be available for meetings in the coming months. Later this year, we plan to launch in Australia, Canada, France, Japan, New Zealand, Spain and the U.K.
Companies like Eventbrite, Gilt, oDesk and Woolworths have been testing Chromebox for meetings, and have
told us
that they love the simple setup, the ease of use, and being able to see their colleagues in other offices. More importantly, the low price will enable them to extend these benefits to even more employees, rooms and offices. Find out how
Chromebox for meetings
can help you and your coworkers see eye-to-eye. Happy meetings, everyone!
Posted by Caesar Sengupta, VP, Product Management
New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline
December 11, 2013
Whether you’re crunching big data or tracking your family budget, you don’t want to waste time waiting for files to load or re-doing edits that were lost because your Internet connection dropped. You can now get more done by
switching to
the new version of Google Sheets. It’s faster, supports larger spreadsheets, has a number of new features, and works offline.
Bigger, faster spreadsheets
The new Sheets supports millions of cells and kicks many of the old size and complexity limits to the curb. Scrolling, loading and calculation are all snappier, even in more complex spreadsheets.
New features based on your feedback and requests
Filter views
is a new feature unique to Google Sheets that lets you quickly name, save and share different views of your data. This comes in handy when you’re collaborating so you can sort a spreadsheet without affecting how others see it.
Whether you’re new to formulas or a whiz at running complex functions, it’s now easier to set up and perform calculations. New
function help
and examples guide you as you type, and error highlighting and coloring make it easy to spot and fix mistakes.
As another time-saving improvement,
text now automatically flows
into empty adjacent cells—no manual merge needed.
With the improved
conditional formatting
, you can add rules to change the colors and styles of cells in your spreadsheet based on custom formulas.
No Internet connection? Work offline with Chrome
You shouldn’t have to think about whether you have a WiFi connection when you want to work. So just like Google Docs and Slides, you can now make edits to Sheets offline. When you reconnect to the Internet, your edits will automatically sync. If you've edited Docs or Slides offline in the past, then you’re already set up to edit Sheets offline. If not, follow these
one-time instructions
for setting up offline in Chrome.
Ready to try it out?
Turn on the new Sheets by checking the “Try the new Google Sheets” box in
Google Drive settings
. From then on, all new spreadsheets you create will work offline and include these new features. We’ll be adding a small list of
missing features
in the coming months, so if you rely on any of them, you may want to wait a little longer before opting in.
We hope you enjoy these and the many other updates that come along with the new Google Sheets, including
colored sheet tabs
,
custom number formatting
,
paste transpose
and more. Let us know what you think on our
Google+ page
!
Posted by Zach Lloyd, Software Engineer
Attachments in Gmail, now with the power of Google Drive
November 12, 2013
You're probably used to downloading email attachments, but each of those files takes time to download, eats up space on your device, and can get buried deep inside your "Downloads" folder. With today's update to Gmail, you can skip that whole process. Instead, you can view attachments
and
save files directly to Google Drive without ever leaving Gmail, making it easy to access them later from whatever device you’re on—computer, phone or tablet.
The next time you open an email with attachments, you’ll see new previews of the files at the bottom of the email, from photos and videos to spreadsheets and PDFs.
When you click on one of those previews, a full-screen view of the image or document will appear. You can read, search for a particular phrase, and even browse through multiple attachments right in Gmail.
You can now also save your attachments directly to Drive simply by clicking the Drive button that appears when you hover over the preview. Of course, if you prefer to download the attachment to your computer, you can—just click the arrow button.
This new attachment experience is available on desktop and will be rolling out over the next week. If you’re one of the more than 120 million active Drive users, you know that saving your files to Drive lets you get to them from any computer, phone or tablet. And if you aren’t taking advantage of Drive just yet, give it a try with your next Gmail attachment.
Posted by Scott Johnston, Director of Product Management
(Cross-posted on the
Gmail Blog
and
Google Drive Blog
)
A new inbox that puts you back in control
May 29, 2013
We get a lot of different types of email: messages from friends, social notifications, deals and offers, confirmations and receipts, and more. All of these emails can compete for our attention and make it harder to focus on the things we need to get done. Sometimes it feels like our inboxes are controlling us, rather than the other way around.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Today, Gmail is getting a brand new inbox on desktop and mobile that puts you back in control using simple, easy organization.
On the desktop, the new inbox groups your mail into categories which appear as different tabs. You simply choose which categories you want and voilà! Your inbox is organized in a way that lets you see what’s new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read when.
You can easily customize the new inbox—select the tabs you want from all five to none, drag-and-drop to move messages between tabs, set certain senders to always appear in a particular tab and star messages so that they also appear in the Primary tab.
In the
Gmail for Android 4.0+
and
Gmail for iPhone and iPad
apps, you'll see your Primary mail when you open the app and you can easily navigate to the other tabs.
If the new inbox isn't quite your style, you can simply switch off all optional tabs to go back to classic view, or switch to any of your
other favorite inbox types
.
The new inbox is rolling out gradually. The desktop, Android and iOS versions will become available within the next few weeks. If you'd like to try out the new inbox on Desktop sooner, keep an eye on the gear menu and select
Configure inbox
when it appears in the Settings options.
Posted by Itamar Gilad, Product Manager
Google Keep—Save what’s on your mind
March 20, 2013
Every day we all see, hear or think of things we need to remember. Usually we grab a pad of sticky-notes, scribble a reminder and put it on the desk, the fridge or the relevant page of a magazine. Unfortunately, if you’re like me you probably often discover that the desk, fridge or magazine wasn’t such a clever place to leave the note after all...it’s rarely where you need it when you need it.
To solve this problem we’ve created Google Keep. With Keep you can quickly jot ideas down when you think of them and even include checklists and photos to keep track of what’s important to you. Your notes are safely stored in Google Drive and synced to all your devices so you can always have them at hand.
If it’s more convenient to speak than to type that’s fine—Keep transcribes voice memos for you automatically. There’s super-fast search to find what you’re looking for and when you’re finished with a note you can archive or delete it.
Changing priorities isn’t a problem: just open Keep on your Android phone or tablet (there’s a widget so you can have Keep front and center all the time) and drag your notes around to reflect what matters. You can choose the color for each note too.
Pro tip: for adding thoughts quickly without unlocking your device there's a lock screen widget (on devices running Android 4.2+).
Google Keep
is available on Google Play for devices running Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich and above. You can access, edit and create new notes on the web at
http://drive.google.com/keep
and in the coming weeks you'll be able to do the same directly from Google Drive.
Posted by Katherine Kuan, Software Engineer
Making the cloud more accessible with Chrome and Android
February 28, 2013
If you’re a blind or low-vision user, you know that working in the cloud poses unique challenges. Our accessibility team had an opportunity to address some of those challenges at the 28th annual
CSUN International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference
this week. While there, we led a workshop on how we’ve been improving the accessibility of Google technologies. For all those who weren’t at the conference, we want to share just a few of those improvements and updates:
Chrome and Google Apps
Chrome OS now supports a high-quality text-to-speech voice (starting with U.S. English). We’ve also made spoken feedback, along with screen magnification and high-contrast mode available out-of-the-box to make Chromebook and Chromebox setup easier for users with accessibility needs.
Gmail now has a consistent navigation interface, backed by HTML5 ARIA, which enables blind and low-vision users to effectively navigate using a set of keyboard commands.
It’s now much easier to access content in your Google Drive using a keyboard—for example, you can navigate a list of files with just the arrow keys. In Docs, you can access features using the keyboard, with a new way to search menu and toolbar options. New keyboard shortcuts and verbalization improvements also make it easier to use Docs, Sheets and Slides with a screenreader.
The
latest stable version of Chrome
, released last week, includes support for the Web Speech API, which developers can use to integrate speech recognition capabilities into their apps. At CSUN, our friends from
Bookshare
demonstrated how they use this new functionality to deliver
ReadNow
—a fully integrated ebook reader for users with print disabilities.
Finally, we released a new
Help Center Guide
specifically for blind and low-vision users to ease the transition to using Google Apps.
Android
We added Braille support to Android 4.1; since then, Braille support has been expanded on Google Drive for Android, making it easier to read and edit your documents. You can also use Talkback with Docs and Sheets to edit on the go.
With Gesture Mode in Android 4.1, you can reliably navigate the UI using touch and swipe gestures in combination with speech output.
Screen magnification is now built into
Android 4.2
—just enable “Magnification gestures,” then triple tap to enter full screen magnification.
The latest release of
TalkBack
(available on Play soon) includes several highly-requested features like structured browsing of web content and the ability to easily suspend/resume TalkBack via an easy-to-use radial menu.
These updates to Chrome, Google Apps, and Android will help create a better overall experience for our blind and low-vision users, but there’s still room for improvement. Looking ahead, we’re focused on the use of accessibility APIs that will make it easier for third-party developers to create accessible web applications, as well as pushing the state of the art forward with technologies like speech recognition and text-to-speech. We’re looking forward to working with the rest of the industry to make computers and the web more accessible for everyone.
Posted by T.V. Raman, Engineering Lead, Google Accessibility
Communicate more easily across languages in Gmail
October 9, 2012
Finding the right words can be difficult, especially across languages, and once you choose them, finding a way to type them can be even harder. Try emailing family in Germany, chatting with friends in China or adding a Russian business partner's name to your contacts and you may find yourself limited by the language of your keyboard.
That's why today we’re adding more than 100 virtual keyboards, transliteration and
IMEs
—collectively called input tools—in Gmail. These tools enable you to type in the language and keyboard layout you’re accustomed to, making it easy to keep in touch with family, friends and coworkers from any computer. You can even switch between languages with one click.
To try it out, check the box next to
Enable input tools
under
Language
in
Settings
.
Once you’ve enabled it, you’ll see the Input Tools icon next to the Settings button in your toolbar, and you can
turn on and off any Input Tool
from there.
With these new virtual keyboards, Gmail supports typing in 75 languages—a big jump from the five languages that were initially supported when we
introduced Indic transliteration
in Gmail in 2009.
Gmail’s users are from all over the world—and language should never get in the way of a good conversation. If you'd like to use Input Tools in other places, try out the
Chrome extension
, the
Windows desktop client or the Android app
.
Posted by C. Andrew Warren, Product Manager
(Cross-posted on the
Gmail
and Enterprise Blogs)
Celebrating teachers who make a difference with Google
October 1, 2012
For most of us, there’s at least one teacher whose name we will never forget—that favorite teacher who made a difference in our education, whether they were our first grade art teacher or a professor in college. For me, that teacher was Ms. Taylor, my 8th grade science teacher. Ms. Taylor didn't just foster my love of science—she understood that 8th grade can be a tough time for students as they try to navigate social cliques and prepare for the pressure of high school. Ms. Taylor knew that taking the time to ask us if we were feeling okay was just as important as teaching us about geological formations. She didn’t just care about
teaching
us—she genuinely cared about us as people.
This Friday is World Teachers' Day, and we want to honor the teachers like Ms. Taylor who helped make us the people we are today. We’ve long supported education through technology, offering free tools like
YouTube Edu
and
Google Apps for Education
, and by developing
cost-efficient devices like Chromebooks
. But it’s the teachers who really make the difference by creatively incorporating that technology into their classrooms. As technology usage in schools increases, we hear even more amazing stories about how teachers and students are using our products to foster collaborative learning.
And that usage is growing quickly. As of today, more than 20 million students, faculty and staff worldwide use Google Apps for Education. In addition, in the last year we announced that:
400+ universities are posting lectures and/or full courses online using YouTube Edu
600,000 staff from the Philippines Department of Education
will now be using Google Apps
Universities across the continents are signing up for Apps, including schools in
Poland
,
Spain
,
the Netherlands
and
Africa
More than 500 schools and districts went back to school with Chromebooks this fall
Seven of the eight Ivy League universities and 72 of this year’s top 100 U.S. universities (as determined by
2013 U.S. News and World Report
’s ranking)
have gone Google
with Google Apps for Education
As a tribute to the educators who are putting these tools to work, this week we’ll be highlighting a few amazing teachers on our
Google in Education page
on Google+. To kick off the series, we want to celebrate Ms. Kornowski—a science teacher at Kettle-Moraine High School in Wales, WI, who is using Google Forms to bring her students together.
To all the Ms. Taylors and Ms. Kornowskis out there—thank you, both for the positive impact you have on your students and for letting Google be a part of that experience.
Posted by Cristin Frodella, Google in Education
Greater accessibility for Google Apps
September 19, 2012
It's been a year since we posted about enhanced accessibility in
Google Docs, Sites and Calendar
. As we close out another summer, we want to update our users on some of the new features and improvements in our products since then. We know that assistive technologies for the web are still evolving, and we're committed to moving the state of accessibility forward in our applications.
Since last year, we've made a number of accessibility fixes in Google Calendar, including improved focus handling, keyboard access, and navigation. In Google Drive, we incorporated Optical Character Recognition technology to allow screen readers to read text in scanned PDFs and images, and we added NVDA support for screen readers. New accessibility features in mobile apps (Gmail for Mobile and Google Drive on iOS and Android) included enhanced explore-by-touch capabilities and keyboard/trackpad navigability. For a full list of new features and improvements for accessibility in our products, check out our
post
today on accessible@googlegroups.com.
Based on these updates, we’ve also created an
Administrator Guide to Accessibility
that explains best practices for deploying Google Apps to support users’ accessibility needs. We want to give everyone a great experience with Google Apps, and this guide is another resource designed with that goal in mind.
For more information on these specific accessibility improvements, using Google products with screen readers, how to submit feedback and how to track our progress, please visit
www.google.com/accessibility
.
Posted by Jeff Harris, Product Manager
A new way of doing things on campus
September 13, 2012
Josh remembers the old days at college, when working on a group project meant trekking through the snow (uphill both ways, of course) to meet with his team in the library, followed by endless rounds of back-and-forth revisions (in red pen, no doubt). And by old days, he means last year. As
Josh
—a rising senior at Princeton University—heads back to campus this fall, he and his classmates will be getting a whole new experience with
Google Apps for Education
.
Princeton is just one of the many colleges and universities now using Google Apps. In fact, seven of the eight Ivy League universities and 72 of this year’s top 100 U.S. Universities (as determined by 2013
U.S. News and World Report
’s ranking) have gone Google, too.
We’re also welcoming 14 other new schools to the Google Apps for Education family, just in time for back-to-school:
Bates College
Carnegie Mellon University
Georgetown University
Princeton University
Rice University
Smith College
Stony Brook University
University of California, Berkeley
University of Colorado, Boulder
University of Dayton
University of Mississippi
University of Pennsylvania, School of Arts and Sciences
Vassar College
Virginia Tech
By
going Google
, students and teachers have access to a whole new way of doing things: They can better collaborate in and out of the classroom; office hours can be held via hangouts; e-portfolios can be created and maintained in a Google Site; professors can give real-time feedback in a Google document (no red pen necessary); and group projects can take place across continents instead of side-by-side in a library.
And this is just the beginning. As more schools go Google, we continue to be amazed by the creative ways students and teachers are using technology to work better together, and we’re looking forward to the surprises in store this school year.
Posted by Miriam Schneider, Google Apps for Education
(Cross-posted on the
Google Enterprise Blog
.)
Google Drive: Updates for iOS and Android
September 10, 2012
Every day, more and more people are choosing to live online and
get things done in the cloud
. Helping to make this experience as seamless as possible,
Google Drive
is one place where you can create, share and keep all your stuff. Drive is available on the web, as well as
Mac
,
Windows
and
Android
and
iOS
.
Updates for iOS
Starting today, if you’re using the
Drive app
on your iOS device you can also
edit
Google documents, just as you can with the
Android app
. From your iPhone or iPad, you can
create a new document, edit an existing one or format text
. And, just like on your computer, you’ll be able to see other people’s edits instantly as they’re made.
You’ll also notice other new improvements to the iOS Drive app. For example, you can now view Google
presentations
on your iPhone or iPad, including speaker notes, full-screen mode and the ability to swipe between slides. You can also
create new folders, move files into folders and upload stuff
(like photos and videos) from your device directly in the Drive app.
Updates for Android
We’re also updating the Drive app for Android phones and tablets today. You can now add comments, reply to existing comments and view tables in your Google documents. And you’ll have the same new abilities to view presentations and organize your stuff as your friends with iPhones do.
More to come...
Looking ahead, we have plenty more planned for the Drive mobile apps—including native editing and real-time collaboration for Google spreadsheets. Stay tuned.
Get Drive in the
App Store
for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch and visit the
Play Store
to get the latest on your Android phone or tablet. To learn more about Google Drive, visit
drive.google.com/start
.
Posted by Anil Sabharwal, Senior Product Manager
(Cross-posted on the
Enterprise
and
Drive
blogs)
Conquer the back to school blues with Google tools
August 9, 2012
August is both an end to the lush freedom of summer and the beginning of another year of student life. As a rising senior at the University of Florida, this time is both exciting and anxiety-inducing. Even though I’m looking forward to many aspects of the school year, there are certain things about college—from book budgets to calculus study sessions—that can make it a headache.
But this fall, I feel more prepared to face the daily student grind. This summer, I had the chance to intern on the communications team at Google and got the inside track on some tools and tricks to make school a snap. For example, did you know there was an
extension for Chrome
that helps you stay focused on your work? Yup, didn’t think so! So I thought I’d share some of my new favorite tips—my “Survival Guide for Student Life”—to help make it easier for all students to get through the coming months.
Easy ways to coordinate your social and extracurricular life
Google+ Hangouts enables you to video chat with up to nine friends from your desktop,
mobile phone or tablet
. A great feature for when your club needs to discuss some last minute changes for the upcoming meeting.
Stay on task with
Hangout Apps
like
Symphonical
, which provides a digital wall of sticky notes for virtual brainstorm sessions.
With
Google+ Events
, invite all your friends to your get-together and attach a personalized video greeting to the invitation. During the event, photos from the party can be uploaded to the event page in real-time using Party Mode. So if you have to miss a party due to a study session, you can avoid that pesky FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)!
Let your friends know what you’re up to by sharing your Google Calendar with them. Or create a shared calendar just for your study group.
Stay organized and efficient—and be prepared for the unexpected
Stop the email flood from the ridiculous number of email lists you signed up for using Gmail’s
auto-unsubscribe
feature.
No more sore eyes from crowded inboxes—Gmail's default mode is
Priority Inbox
so it automatically sorts your important messages for you.
Cite your sources! Use Google Docs’
research tool
to investigate highlighted portions of your essay and then generate a citation.
Group projects call for collaboration. With
Google Drive
, you can use shared folders so everyone can access materials without having to email updates to each other.
Using your laptop or phone, you can send any documents or presentations saved on your Google Drive to
Fedex
to be printed, thanks to Google Cloud Print.
Get what you need and where you’re going faster
For those of you starting at university this year, Google Maps has 360-degree panoramic
Street View imagery
for many campuses around the world to give you a preview of your new stomping grounds.
Back to school shopping is one of the most fun things about August. Find your way in and out of malls and department stores with
indoor Google Maps
on Android devices.
We college students can’t go too long without homemade food. Search for your next flight home with
Flight Search
. (If flying makes you a bit queasy, track any care packages by typing the tracking code into the Google search bar.)
Stay informed with
Google Now
. This feature, available on Android devices running Jelly Bean, can update you when the next bus is coming or provide the weather forecast for Saturday’s big game.
Reading, writing, 'rithmetic and... YouTube
Don’t break the bank on textbooks. Google Play has millions of FREE (emphasis is important) books readily available such as "
Pride and Prejudice
" and "
Gulliver’s Travels
."
With the new
Nexus 7 tablet
, you can take your
Google Play
books, music, movies, TV shows, magazines and apps (like
My Majors
and
doubleTwist Alarm Clock
) with you, wherever you go.
Locate hard-to-find books online or at a library near you with
Book Search
.
Put Chrome to work with educational
apps
.
Not a fan of traditional note taking?
Chromebooks
are a super fast and virus-proof laptop. It starts seconds after you boot it and will last through a whole day of classes.
A fair portion of us students aren’t fans of mental math. Type any equation into the Google search box to get the answers you need. It can
graph functions
as well.
We know we spend too much of our time watching funny videos on YouTube, but there are video channels that can actually help us learn more about a variety of subjects—from
astrophysics
to
world history
. Find more educational channels at
YouTube EDU
.
I’m resting a bit easier now that I know there are tools that make student life a bit less overwhelming. Here’s hoping you, too, feel armed to face the fall semester—and beyond—with Google in your backpack.
Posted by Jenise Araujo, BOLD Intern, Communications Team
Chrome & Apps @ Google I/O: Your web, everywhere
June 28, 2012
This morning we kicked off day 2 at I/O to talk about the open web—one of the most amazing
platforms
we have seen. To put things in perspective, today there are more than 2.3 billion users on the web—a staggering number, but it only represents one-third of the world’s population. There’s still a lot of opportunity for growth.
Chrome, which we
built
from the ground up as a browser for the modern web, has seen tremendous adoption. Thanks to many of you, Chrome has nearly doubled since last year’s I/O—from 160 million to 310 million active users around the world. As more and more of you live your lives online, we want to to help make it easy for you to live in the cloud...seamlessly.
A better web to your web
One of the most exciting shifts is the explosion of the mobile web. When Chrome first launched, many people were tethered to a single computer. Today most people use multiple computers, smartphones and tablets. With that trend in mind, our goal is to offer you a consistent, personalized web experience across all devices. In February, we
released
Chrome for Android, which
exited beta
this week and is the standard browser on
Nexus 7
, a powerful new tablet.
Starting today,
Chrome is also available
for your iPhone and iPad. That means you can enjoy the same speedy and simple Chrome experience across your devices. Also, by
signing in
to Chrome, you can easily move from your desktop, laptop, smartphone and tablet and have all of your stuff with you.
Living in the cloud
A modern browser is just one ingredient of living online seamlessly. We continue to invest in building cloud apps, which many people rely on daily. Gmail, which launched in 2004, has evolved from a simple email service to the primary mode of communication for more than 425 million active users globally. We’ve also built a suite of apps to help users live in the cloud, including Google Documents, Spreadsheets, Calendar and more.
At the hub of this cloud experience is
Google Drive
—a place where you can create, share, collaborate and keep all your stuff. Ten weeks ago we launched Drive and in 10 weeks, more than 10 million users have signed up. Today
we introduced more capabilities
, including offline editing for Google documents and a Drive app for your iPhone and iPad. Drive is also seamlessly integrated into
Chrome OS
. With Drive available across Mac, Windows, Chrome OS, Android and iOS, it’s even easier to get things done in the cloud from anywhere.
Going Google
With the help of Chrome and and the growth of Google apps, people are discovering new ways to get things done faster, connect with others, and access their information no matter what device they’re using. This is what we call “
going Google
.” And it’s not just individual people. Schools, government institutions and businesses—big and small—are also “going Google.” Sixty-six of the top 100 universities in the U.S., government institutions in 45 out of 50 U.S. states, and a total of 5 million business are using
Google Apps
to live and work in the cloud.
It’s an exciting time to be living online. To celebrate this ongoing journey, here’s a quick look back at the evolution of Chrome:
None of what we shared onstage at I/O today would be possible without the awe-inspiring work being done by a global community of developers and the continued support of our users. We can’t wait to see what you do next.
Posted by Sundar Pichai, SVP, Chrome & Apps
In schools, all you need is web
June 25, 2012
While students in the northern hemisphere say goodbye to each other and another school year, we’re in sunny San Diego meeting with thousands of educators and administrators at the International Society for Technology in Education (
ISTE
) conference. While on break from teaching, these folks are here to teach others how they’re bringing innovation into their classrooms—a lot of which centers around the web.
While the web was developed well before today’s students were born, it’s come a long way even since a year ago. Today you can access the web on any device, use the web
offline
and take advantage of amazing graphics. For example, you can get a
powerful graphing calculator on the web
today, for free.
It’s been really amazing to see how the web is impacting schools. We’ve heard great
real-world stories
about Google Apps for Education, but lately we’re hearing more and more about schools extending the functionality of Google Apps with
educational apps
available on the Chrome Web Store. There are tens of thousands of apps in the Chrome Web Store, and today we’re adding some new ones:
ST Math
,
VoiceThread
and
Acheive3000
.
To give you an idea of what’s possible on the web: Leyden High School District from Illinois is rolling out Chromebooks to their 3,500 students and are using apps like
WeVideo
,
EasyBib
,
Vernier Labquest2
,
SlideRocket
,
Geogebra
and
Pearson’s OpenClass
as part of their 1-to-1 learning initiative.
Students at East Leyden High School work together on their Chromebooks. Photo credit: East Leyden Art Teacher Anna Reed.
Chromebooks as a tool for 1-to-1 learning
It’s great to see that many schools are choosing Chromebooks as an effective and affordable 1-to-1 education tool. There are more than 500 districts in the U.S. and Europe actively using Chromebooks, and today we’re pleased to welcome a few more to the community, including Rockingham Country Schools, N.C., Transylvania County Schools, N.C., and Fond du Lac School District, Wis.
Chromebooks are always new—
just last month we announced
new devices, an updated, app-centric user interface and new pricing for schools. Chromebooks also make it just as easy for administrators to distribute 10, 100 or 1,000 Chromebooks, saving precious summer vacation time previously spent installing software and policies on computers. And great news for schools looking to make hardware purchases: the
PARCC and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortia confirmed
Chromebooks meet hardware and operating system requirements for student assessments in the 2014-2015 school year.
Applications for education
Today at ISTE, we are introducing some new features for schools using Chromebooks that make it even easier to find, use, install and manage web apps for your entire school:
Grade-level application packs
are groups of Chrome Web Store apps that integrate tightly with Google’s suite of Apps for Education, divided by grade levels to meet different classroom needs. These packs are installable from the Chromebook management console. Many of them are free and we’ve worked with the app makers to offer discounts for bulk purchases.
Organization-specific web app collections
in the Chrome Web Store give administrators the ability to recommend apps to students, teachers and staff. The collection is visible only to the school, and admins can curate apps from the Chrome Web Store, application packs and web apps purchased elsewhere or private apps developed by the school. (This feature is also available to Chromebooks for Business customers from the control panel.)
We’ve enjoyed being a part of ISTE the past several years, and always look forward to hearing about new ways that students and teachers are using the web to do amazing things. (If you’re at the conference, come see us at booth 2603 and
listen to
or share a story!)
Posted by Vidya Nagarajan, Product Manager, Chromebooks for Education
Labels
accessibility
39
acquisition
26
ads
131
Africa
19
Android
59
apps
417
April 1
4
Asia
39
books + book search
48
commerce
12
computing history
7
crisis response
32
culture
11
developers
120
diversity
33
doodles
65
education and research
144
entrepreneurs at Google
14
Europe
46
faster web
16
free expression
61
google.org
69
googleplus
50
googlers and culture
203
green
101
Latin America
18
maps and earth
192
mobile
125
online safety
19
open source
19
photos
37
policy and issues
139
politics
69
privacy
66
recruiting and hiring
32
scholarships
31
search
502
search quality
24
search trends
118
security
36
small business
31
user experience and usability
41
youtube and video
140
Archive
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2012
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2008
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2007
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2006
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2005
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2004
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Feed
Follow @google
Follow
Give us feedback in our
Product Forums
.
.png)
.png)
Follow
