Editor's note: The Google Cultural Institute creates technologies that make the world’s culture accessible to anyone, anywhere. This week, we announced a new partnership with the British Museum that gives people new ways to access and experience the museum, and new ways to learn and teach. We’ve invited Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum since August 2002, to write a guest post for the Google Europe blog, explaining the partnership.

The British Museum was founded in 1753 by an act of Parliament and is the embodiment of Enlightenment idealism. In a revolutionary move, it was from its inception designed to be the collection of every citizen of the world, not a royal possession and not controlled by the state.

Over the succeeding 260 plus years it has gathered and exhibited things from all over the globe – antiquities, coins, sculptures, drawings – and made them freely available to anyone who was able to come and see them. Millions have visited and learned, and have been inspired by what they saw. Today the Museum is probably the most comprehensive survey of the material culture of humanity in existence.

The world today has changed; the way we access information has been revolutionised by digital technology. Sharing knowledge has become easier and we can do extraordinary things with technology which enable us to give new reality to the Enlightenment ideal on which the Museum was founded. It is now possible to make our collection accessible, explorable and enjoyable not just for those who physically visit, but for everybody with a computer or a mobile device.

Yesterday, we announced a partnership with Google that allows us to further our own – extraordinary – mission: to be a Museum of and for the World, making the knowledge and culture of the whole of humanity open and available to all. This isn’t just about putting the collection ‘online'. Through our partnership with Google, we hope to give people new ways to experience and enjoy the Museum, new ways to learn, new ways to share and new ways to teach.

Thousands of objects from the Museum’s collection will be available to view through the Google Cultural Institute and through a special, dedicated site called ‘The Museum of the World’, which will allow users to explore and make connections between the world’s cultures.

One of the Museum’s most important objects, the Admonitions Scroll, a Chinese scroll dating from the 6th century, has been captured in super high-resolution to give you a closer and more intimate view than you could ever get with the naked eye.

We’ve captured the whole Museum via Street View, meaning that if you can’t get to the Museum in person, you can take a virtual walking tour of every permanent gallery, and its outdoor buildings.

And virtual exhibits allow you to see Celtic objects from across UK museums brought together in a unique tour or a thematic exhibition detailing Egypt’s history after the pharaohs.

None of this is to deny the power of seeing an object in the flesh in a gallery - nothing will replace that experience. But it does allow a far greater public access to the Museum and its unparalleled collection.

And this is just the beginning. We’re in a brave new world of information dissemination. As we are transformed by globalisation, it is more important than ever to understand the past of the whole world. The breadth of the British Museum’s collection, the authority of the Museum’s scholarship and the skill with which it is presented and mediated: all these are now ready and available for anyone anywhere on the planet.

The more we can work with partners in the technology sphere, and the more we rise to the challenge of making our world a digital one, the greater will be our impact on community cohesion and understanding, domestically and internationally. Through technology, the Museum’s collection can become the private collection of the entire world. And so our great Enlightenment vision moves into a phase our founders in the 18th century couldn’t even have dreamed of.

Posted by Neil MacGregor, Director, British Museum

Nothing ruins the experience of watching an awesome European YouTube video like Heroes more than seeing the dreaded buffering wheel, which is why we're always working to make videos play smoothly in the best quality possible. And when you can't see what you want, when you want, it’s helpful to know why.

Starting today, if you’re in Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, or Iceland, you can use the Google Video Quality Report to see how well YouTube performs for you.

If you’re regularly seeing videos buffer, this report can give you a better idea of why, as well as tips to make YouTube play better. You can also see the video quality in your area, based on these levels:

• HD Verified: If your provider can consistently deliver HD video, a resolution of at least 720p, without buffering or interruptions--it’s HD Verified.
• Standard Definition: If you can watch videos at a resolution of at least 360p, your provider is delivering Standard Definition.
• Lower Definition: If videos load slowly or frequently buffer, even at resolutions lower than 360p, your provider is delivering Lower Definition performance.

The Google Video Quality Report is already available in Finland, Norway, Switzerland, the United States and Canada, and we will continue to roll it out to more countries in partnership with ISPs.

Want to see our methodology? Check out the geeky details, and learn how videos get from us to you with this video:



Finally, making sure you can watch YouTube in HD from anywhere, anytime is a shared effort between us, your Internet service provider and even you. So, to make sure you're getting the best video quality possible, check out these seven tips you can use right now:

Posted by Jay Akkad, Product Manager, YouTube

Without health, life is nothing, as the saying goes -- and healthcare policy in Europe is at a crossroads. Young professionals who want to to shape what the continent's systems for health and wellbeing will look like in the future can join the European Health Parliament -- and the deadline to apply is November 22. The European Health Parliament is an initiative of the young MEPs' action group EU40, news site Politico, the College of Europe, Johnson & Johnson and Google. Europe needs to confront its numerous health problems, as the costs, both human and financial, are shared by us all. Because new challenges require new thinking, the European Health Parliament will bring together 50 young professionals in Brussels between December 2015 and June 2016 to discuss what the issues are and how we can deal with them. The results from the sessions will be wrapped into a series of academic papers to share with policymakers and social media.

The first edition of the European Health Parliament was a huge success, with many participants hailing it as a "once-in-a-lifetime experience." There were debates on everything from how sharing patient records across borders can help prevent the spread of drug-resistant tuberculosis, to how telemedicine systems empower patients. The final result was these seven recommendations on how to make Europe's healthcare system fit for the future. Participants discussed burning issues with key figures in the European Parliament including Giovanni La Via, Philippe De Backer and Eva Kaili. Afterwards, they shared their recommendations with EU Commissioner for Health Vytenis Andriukaitis and Belgian Minister of Social Affairs and Health Maggie de Block. The upcoming edition isn't just a repeat of the same exercise. As healthcare becomes increasingly digitized -- think everything from fitness apps on your phone to operations via videolink and sharing patient records electronically -- it's time for the European Health Parliament to get online as well. Google is keen to make digital skills a theme this year, so candidates with an ICT background are especially welcome. Innovation, creativity and fearless thinking are what Europe's healthcare systems need at this point! The deadline for applications is November 22. If you are under 35, have a degree, and are available for several meetings in Brussels during coming months -- and, most importantly, want to share your views on how to best shape European healthcare in the future -- apply here now. Posted by Marco Pancini, Senior Policy Council Google

We’re always trying to build technology that helps people access and explore the world around them, from the Liwa desert to a tucked-away restaurant in Playa Carmen. That’s why today, we’re excited to announce a partnership with the Financial Times called Hidden Cities. Hidden Cities is a FT Weekend series that combines Google technology with FT journalism. It allows readers to discover places to eat, drink, and shop in the world’s political and cultural capitals, and easily explore them using Google Maps.

We’re kicking off the series by showcasing gems off the beaten path in Brussels. Readers can expect lots of beer and chocolate recommendations from local tastemakers and FT journalists alike - including picks from master chocolatier Pierre Marcolini, brewery chief Jean Van Roy, and the FT Bureau staff past and present.
You can check out the online experience at ft.com/hiddencities and this weekend’s FT Weekend Magazine. Look out for the next Hidden Cities installment in November, which will take users under the surface of another European capital - London.

Posted by Molly Welch, Product Marketing Manager

Editor’s note: La Biennale di Venezia has for over a century been one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world, showcasing contemporary art from around the world. For the first time, the Google Cultural Institute had the privilege of partnering with La Biennale and bringing the renowned art exhibition Biennale Arte 2015 online for everyone to see. Users can browse over 80 digital exhibitions and explore 360 degree Street View images of 71 pavilions of La Biennale at g.co/biennalearte2015 and through a dedicated mobile app. We hope to see many of you in Venice for La Biennale, and are sure you will continue to discover new and delightful aspects of the art long after you return home.

We’ve invited Paolo Baratta, President of La Biennale di Venezia, to share his thoughts.

***

Our collaboration with Google started a few months ago, when la Biennale shared an overview of La Biennale Arte 1999 curated by Harald Szeemann on the Google Cultural Institute website. That edition of La Biennale was the first to use the spaces of the Arsenale, a historic area of Venice, which in turn gave grounds to the development of the two dimensions of the exhibit: one entrusted to the Curator nominated by La Biennale, and the other formed by the National Pavilions.
Today, after that experiment, we continue the collaboration with Google, bringing online a selection of artworks and pavilions from Biennale Arte 2015, All The World’s Futures, curated by Okwui Enwezor.

La Biennale has a specific role: to research and share the understanding of contemporary art. Access to the results of our research is achieved, for the most part, through our exhibitions, so encouraging access is certainly our key responsibility. Committing to new technologies that can facilitate the sharing of our work in art and architecture, and also in music and cinema, with a wider audience is therefore fundamental to our mission.
This collaboration with Google is the first, and a very important experiment, which I believe can be developed further in the future in a variety of possible if yet still unknown ways. We’ll do our best!
Combining these digital tools with a stronger editorial ability, our goal is to enhance the experience for our audience and to better the document the exhibit.
The bet we’re placing on new technology is most definitely not one that replaces the direct experience with a virtual or indirect one, but, on the contrary, one where virtual viewing is used to help enhance the in-person experience.
Posted by Paolo Baratta, President of la Biennale di Venezia  

The European Commission estimates that more than 900,000 high tech jobs will go unfilled in 2020. We want to do something about that. As part of our on-going efforts to encourage more school students to learn about computing, and to ensure that all of them have an opportunity to get the right skills, we participated in the EC initiative Europe Code Week 2015 which took place Oct 10-18.  

To kick things off we supported the ‘EU Dojo’ event at the European Parliament, where students introduced coding to Members of European Parliament. We also ran office events in Brussels and Amsterdam and sent Googlers out to visit students in Ireland and Greece.   

Furthermore, we provided small grants and resources to organizations running computer science outreach events: from Belgium to Bulgaria, France to Finland, and Spain to Slovakia. In Ljubljana we supported the University of Ljubljana’s “Programming for Fun” series of events, which featured opportunities for over 200 students of all ages.

School kids receive a certificate after participating in a workshop with Hackidemia Bulgaria

In Bulgaria, the Vratsa Software Development Community ran two days of workshops to inspire youth about the potentials of a career in technology. Other cool initiatives included coding workshops for 200 students during Coders’ Picnic by Fundacja Nowoczesna Polska, the ‘KAS.juniorEXPERTS’ initiative in Germany, educational robotics workshops in Greece and the CodeSevilla event by Programamos. You can read more about the grantees here. In all, we supported over 60 organizations in 24 countries to reach almost 20,000 students in just one week.  

Ultimately, during Europe Code Week 2015 over 7000 events took place inspiring hundreds of thousands of students - an amazing effort! Let’s keep the momentum going. See Code Week’s events page to see all the different activities still happening, and learn more about Google’s effort in computer science education at g.co/csedu.

Posted by Marielena Ivory, Pre-university Education Specialist, Europe

Carlo d’Asaro Biondo, President, EMEA Strategic Relationships at Google, gave a speech today at the Munich Media Days Conference, outlining the progress made by the Digital News Initiative made since April 2015, including the launch, today, of an €150m Innovation Fund for the European news sector. The full text of his speech is included here.

Thanks for that introduction and for having me to speak today.

It’s an honour to be here at the Munich Media Days. The theme of this conference is how the media can find success in this era of digital disruption. And the theme of this talk suggests the answer: “follow the user”.

A lot has already been said at this conference about how today’s users interact with news.

What do we know? They are moving very fast to mobile - two thirds of smartphone users are consuming news on mobile devices. They love video, they love speed. They follow the news through social channels and apps. They really dislike intrusive ads (more on that later!)

That’s a snapshot, but it illustrates the scale of the challenge that you face in imagining the future of news - and that we face too.

News is - and will remain - a hugely important part of the information eco-system. At Google we recognise that. And we want to play our part in building a successful and sustainable relationship between publishers, technology and the user. We want high quality journalism to thrive for the long term.

Today I want to update you on the progress we are making in that three-way relationship.

It was just nine months ago - not too far from here in Davos - that we met with a group of European publishers and agreed to form the Digital News Initiative, or DNI.

The goal was simple: to encourage a more sustainable news ecosystem -- and promote innovation in digital journalism -- by promoting ongoing collaboration and dialogue between the tech and news sectors.

And we agreed at the outset that this would be an open collaboration - everyone involved in Europe’s digital news industry - large or small, established or newcomer - would be welcome to participate.

I’m delighted to say that today we are working together with more than 120 European partners across the news and tech sectors, including many of the most important names in global journalism. Die Zeit, FAZ and Der Spiegel here in Germany, the Guardian, Financial Times, the BBC, The Economist, La Stampa, El Pais, Les Echos, Euronews and many, many others.

But I want to make one thing very clear. Getting involved in the Digital News Initiative is not about buying into Google’s worldview or selling your soul. There are no contracts or conditions. You can choose to get involved in any or all of the elements of the DNI. It’s open to everyone, and it is all about working together.

So, what are we working on together?

Product Development
The DNI has three pillars. The first concerns Product Development. When we asked news publishers what Google could do to help build a more sustainable future for digital journalism, three words dominated their answers. Engineering and Mountain View!

When I announced the Digital News Initiative back in April, the publishers were cautious - perhaps rightly so. They wanted to see commitment to the project from the highest levels at Google. Let me quote from an article that Tony Danker, Chief Strategy Officer at the Guardian, wrote at the time:

“Can today’s initiative be a genuine partnership between Google and journalism, and thereby a tide to lift all boats? This would require Google’s leadership to see both mission and method here and to realise the real benefits for users. It would see them deploy their best engineering brains to want to fix the problem. It would result in fresh thinking within the product and engineering organisation at Google...It would see this thinking and this partnership spread globally. In short, it would mean more work in Mountain View than Brussels.”

Quite a challenge. But I firmly believe we are delivering upon it.

Over the past 6 months we have engaged in detailed discussions between publishers and Google’s best engineering and product minds to rethink the way users consume and interact with news and technology in this mobile age. The commitment goes right to the very top of Google - our new chief executive Sundar Pichai is closely involved in the project.

Two weeks ago we saw the first fruits of this collaboration when we announced a new initiative called Accelerated Mobile Pages, which aims to dramatically improve the performance of the mobile web.

The essence of this project is speed and openness. Today, users are increasingly consuming their news on the mobile web. But every time a mobile web page takes too long to load, potential readers will abandon it and publishers lose the opportunity to earn revenue through advertising or subscriptions.

The AMP project aims to make loading lightning fast. Under its open source framework, publishers will be able to build light-weight web pages which will still include rich content like video, graphics and ads, but will load instantly. The same code will work across multiple platforms and devices so that content can appear everywhere in an instant, no matter what type of phone or tablet you’re using.

And publishers will remain in control of their content and advertising. Publishers will continue to host their own web pages and will be able keep their choice of ad networks. It’s also a key aim of the project to support subscriptions and paywalls.

Although the conversations that led to this project started in Europe, we are pleased to have started this open-source initiative with more than 30 partners globally - including publishers like the New York Times and NewsCorp, technology platforms like Twitter and Pinterest, analytics partners like Adobe and Chartbeat, and pure digital players like Vox and Buzzfeed.

We’re just at the beginning of an exciting journey, but we expect AMPs to be live in Google Search in early 2016, and you can try out a demo right now on your phone or tablet.

Just type g.co/ampdemo into your mobile browser

You’ll see a Google Search page and then type in a popular news query like Syria or the name of one of the publications involved in the trial, for example the FAZ. You’ll see it’s very fast, that means more traffic and more opportunities for monetisation. Most importantly, it offers a great experience for the user.

The AMP project is about ensuring that the World Wide Web remains fast, vibrant and compelling. And in doing so, to ensure that publishers - large and small - can have their content presented Instantly Everywhere, without having to pursue a deal with proprietary platforms.

We’ve been thrilled at the reaction we’ve had so far - we’ve had expressions of interest from hundreds of publishers and platforms around the world - and we invite others to get involved.

But don’t get too engrossed in the demo - I’ve got plenty more to tell you about!

The AMP project is just one element of a much broader conversation with publishers across a range of areas - mobile, video, monetisation and data. Some developments will be small and incremental, others we hope can be transformative. The point is that these decisions are no longer being made in a vacuum, but as a result of consultation and collaboration with news publishers.

We’re excited about the opportunities and we’ll have more to announce very soon.

Training and research
The second pillar of the DNI relates to training and research. A phrase we use very often at Google is: focus on the user and all else will follow. And of course news editors put great emphasis on a similar phrase - know your reader.

But today, simply understanding - either through gut instinct or metrics - what your readers or viewers are interested in is only half the battle. The evolution of the technology means that the way users consume, interact with and share news content has become central to the process. Journalism - and the technology that delivers the journalism to users - are two sides of the same coin.

In our conversations with publishers we’ve heard there is a great appetite in newsrooms to learn how to make the most of digital tools for journalism. And through our newly established News Lab team we have already run training sessions for more than two thousand journalists across Europe, with newsroom visits, conferences, workshops and more.

In the course of those sessions we got great feedback from newsrooms on how we can make our tools for journalists more useful. One example is Google Search Trends, which allows journalists to see what readers in their country or region are searching for. The feedback we had from newsrooms was: “that’s great, but for the purpose of journalism it really needs to be up to the minute.”

So, after consultation with dozens of journalists, in June we launched real time Search Trends - and many newsrooms are now using those insights to shape and inform their journalism.

And because we’d like this kind of collaboration to go deeper, we have for the first time hired a dedicated team to work with newsrooms in Europe.

Allow me to introduce our newest News Lab recruit - Isa Sonnenfeld - who many of you will already know from her work with Twitter. Stand up Isa!

Isa will be based here in Germany in Berlin, partnering with journalism organisations such as the European Journalism Centre, the Global Editors Network and the International News Media Association to create training programmes and tools tailored to the needs of newsrooms.

Isa will be here throughout the day and would love to catch up with you in one of the breaks.

We also believe that research and measurement are vital to the future of the European news ecosystem. In order to follow the user it is very important to know what the user is doing, how his and her habits are changing. So we have been supporting the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in its effort to produce the Digital News Report, which has quickly become the most authoritative guide to the fast changing patterns of news consumption.

Before the Reuters Institute launched the first Digital News report in 2012, much of this essential data simply didn’t exist. I’m delighted that as a result of our support the Reuters Institute has today added a further six countries to their survey - Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Turkey, Poland and Portugal - bringing the number of countries covered to twenty.

Innovation Fund launching today
The third pillar of the Digital News Initiative is the Innovation Fund. Earlier this year we announced that Google will make 150 million euros available over the next three years to support innovation in digital journalism in Europe. I’m pleased to announce that the fund OPENS TODAY for applications.

News organisations innovate every day - they start with a blank canvas and they fill it with compelling content. News is by definition innovation.

But because the machinery of getting your product out every day is complicated, it’s very hard to find the time and resources to experiment with new approaches to journalism and production.

The DNI Innovation Fund aims to tackle that problem by providing non-refundable support for projects that demonstrate new thinking in the practice of digital journalism, that promote the development of new business models or maybe even change the way users consume digital news.

The Fund is open to established publishers, online-only players, news start-ups, collaborative partnerships and individuals based in Europe. We’re looking for applications for both large and small projects. There is a Prototype track, which is open to everyone, including individuals established in the EU or EFTA, which will offer funding of up to €50.000 per project. And companies and organizations can also submit larger projects, requiring up to €1 million of funding. Projects can focus on your organisation specifically, or be collaborative with other industry players.

If you want to apply to the Innovation Fund, you can find all the details on our website digitalnewsinitiave.com. We will make the first funds available early in the new year.

The process will be inclusive and transparent, overseen by a Council including leading players in European journalism. And let me add that there is no tie-in with any of Google’s products.

Why are we launching an Innovation Fund? It comes back to the feedback we’ve had in our many conversations with publishers. The DNI is all about collaboration and engagement - and as I have described, we think there is much that Google can do to help build a more sustainable future for journalism. But no--one has all the answers, and maybe there are solutions out there that no-one has thought of yet. The fund aims to stimulate that new thinking.

Adblockers
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t say a word about the issue that every publisher is currently talking about - Ad blockers.

Ads are important - they have funded the news media for centuries and they fund the majority of the web today. The EU online advertising market grew to 30 billion euros in 2014. That is money that funds journalism, provides jobs and keeps internet services diverse and accessible.

But ad blockers are growing because consumers are having a bad experience with ads - people hate bad ads: ads that are intrusive, video ads that interrupt, ads that won’t get out of the way and block the content you are trying to enjoy.

We agree - consumers deserve a better ad experience. We - like many other good actors - work to remove the worst offenders. And we work on better alternatives - seamless and useful search ads and skippable ads on YouTube.

The problem is that Ad blockers that block all ads are throwing the baby out with the bathwater, threatening the livelihood of good content creators who are trying to do the right thing.

We need to find a solution -- and fast. We need to work together to create a standard for better ads online. A standard that addresses the bad ad experience that consumers are exposed to. A standard that in time will persuade consumers that they no longer need to use ad blockers.

We are committed to finding a solution that aligns the interests of advertisers, content creators and consumers, and allows readers to continue enjoying great content.

Partnership is better than dispute
The experience of the past year makes me optimistic we can do it. If you had told me twelve months ago that Google would be working together with more than 100 publishers in Europe to build a better web and a more sustainable future for the news industry I think I would have said you were dreaming.

We still have a long way to go, but I am convinced we have proven to each other - and to everyone else - that working together is much more effective than the alternatives.

Partnership is better than dispute. In a fast changing world, technology solutions are better than regulation. Making friends is so much better than making enemies.

Let’s keep going!

Thank you.

Posted by Al Verney, Head of Corporate Communications