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Apartemen di Jaktim diduga jadi transaksi prostitusi online

Saat menggeruduktiga gadis belia di Apartemen Casablanca East Residence, Pondok Bambu, Duren Sawit, Jakarta Timur, salah satu warga bernama Koster Megio Kaudis mengaku sempat melihat satu perempuan yang diduga mucikari. Menurut warga, pelaku biasanya menggunakan situs semprotlagi.com untuk transaksi.

"Informasi sudah ada 2 minggu kalau di tempat (apartemen) itu sering ada transaksi prostitusi online, Blok BA lantai 10 no 1. Dikamar ini ada 4 cewek, 1 berhasil kabur," kata Koster Megio Kaudis (42), di Kantor Polres Jakarta Timur, Jakarta, Jumat (15/2).

Menurut Koster, penggerebakan yang dilakukan warga sudah berkoordinasi dengan aparat terkait. "Kami sudah lapor sama sekuriti apartemen, orang Polsek, sama warga juga. Penggerebakan terjadi jam 12.00 WIB, ada laptopnya 1," imbuhnya.

Di tempat yang sama, Kepala Sub-Bagian Humas Polres Jakarta Timur, Kompol Didik Hariyadi mengatakan saat ini 3 gadis tersebut masih berstatus saksi. Polisi akan memintai keterangan ketiga gadis tersebut.

"Kami masih berikan status saksi buat 3 gadis tersebut karena mereka korban, masih dalam pemeriksaan hingga kini. Kalau dari info penyidik yang diduga mucikari sudah di luar kota terlihat Global Positioning System (GPS) alat elektronik miliknya," ujar Didik.

Banyak kos-kosan di Cianjur dijadikan tempat mesum

Pemkab Cianjur, Jabar, melalui Kantor Satpol PP dan Linmas, segera mengawasi kos-kosan yang diduga dijadikan tempat prostitusi terselubung di wilayah perkotaan.

Kabid Penertiban Umum Satpol PP Pemkab Cianjur, Teguh Dalu, Selasa (19/2) mengakui, keberadaan kos-kosan di berbagai wilayah yang jumlahnya terus menjamur seiring bertambahnya perusahaan, pabrik dan lembaga pendidikan.

"Kami pernah mendengar kabar ada sejumlah kos-kosan yang dijadikan tempat prostitusi terselubung, namun informasi itu perlu pendalaman lebih jauh, sehingga kami belum bisa melakukan tindakan, katanya.

Namun menyikapi hal tersebut, pihaknya akan melakukan pengawasan terhadap keberadaan kos-kosan tersebut, baik terkait indikasi pergaulan bebas atau mengenai kelengkapan perizinannya.

Pasalnya ungkap dia, rumah kos-kosan yang memiliki kamar di atas 10 unit, akan dikenakan pajak daerah, namun terkait hal tersebut, pihaknya terlebih dahulu akan melakukan pendataan langsung ke lokasi.

"Kami menilai masih ada pemilik kos-kosan yang kena pajak namun belum memenuhi kewajibannya. Terkait hal tersebut perlu koordinasi antar dinas. Kalau mengenai keberadaan kos-kosan memicu tingginya pergaulan bebas, masih perlu pembuktian di lapangan," ujarnya seperti dikutip Antara.

Sementara itu, informasi dihimpun, berbagai kalangan di berbagai wilayah yang terdapat rumah kos-kosan, mengaku resah dengan pergaulan yang cenderung bebas di lingkungan kos-kosan tersebut.

Sehingga warga yang tinggal di lingkungan kos-kosan, meminta pemerintah dan aparatur terkait untuk meningkatkan pengawasan terhadap aktivitas di lingkungan kos-kosan tersebut.

"Kalau perlu ada razia rutin untuk mencegah terjadinya penyalahgunaan kos-kosan yang dilakukan pihak yang tidak bertanggungjawab. Kami sudah cukup gerah dengan keberadaan kos-kosan mesum ini," ungkap Maman (35) warga Jalan Siti Jenab, Cianjur.

Dia menambahkan, penghuni kos-kosan yang menjamur di berbagai wilayah perkotaan, membuka ruang kebebasan bagi penghuninya yang dominasi kalangan pelajar dan mahasiswa.

"Harapan kami ada pengawasan ketat dan aturan yang jelas agar kebebasan pergaulan antara laki-laki dan perempuan di rumah kos tidak menyimpang apalagi sampai dijadikan tempat prostitusi terselubung," tandasnya.

Tahun ini, 3 lokalisasi di Surabaya ditutup

Pemerintah Kota Surabaya tahun ini akan menutup tiga lokalisasi yakni Tambak Asri pada April 2013, Klakah Rejo pada Agustus 2013, dan Sememi pada Desember 2013. Sementara, lokalisasi Dolly akan ditutup pada 2014.

"Untuk Lokalisasi Dolly dan Jarak diagendakan tutup pada 2014," kata Wali Kota Surabaya Tri Rismaharini, Jumat (1/3).

Menurutnya, jumlah PSK dan mucikari di Surabaya tiap tahun mengalami penurunan. Hal itu dikarenakan adanya kesepakatan tentang larangan penambahan PSK baru.

"Dinas Sosial dan Dinas Kesehatan juga terus melakukan pemantauan. Jika ketahuan ada WTS baru, maka wisma yang bersangkutan akan ditutup," katanya seperti dilansir Antara.

Dia mengatakan, data terbaru pada 2012 jumlah WTS yang teridentifikasi sebanyak 2.117 orang dan mucikari 584 orang. Sebagai pembanding, pada 2008 jumlah WTS 3.518 orang dan 915 mucikari.

Pihaknya berjanji tidak akan lepas tangan setelah lokalisasi ditutup. Pihaknya akan terus memantau dan mendampingi para mantan PSK dan mucikari. Dia mengatakan, berdasarkan pantauan pihaknya, banyak mantan PSK dan mucikari yang beralih menekuni usaha kecil atau pulang kampung setelah lokalisasi ditutup.

"Saat ini wanita harapan (WTS) sudah banyak yang menerima orderan membuat souvenir dan oleh-oleh khas Surabaya. Dalam waktu dekat, kami juga akan membangun pasar serta sentra PKL di Tambak Asri agar mereka bisa berjualan di situ," katanya.

Untuk mengantisipasi berpindahnya tempat lokalisasi, pihaknya mengaku akan mengantisipasinya dengan menggencarkan razia di tempat hiburan malam.

"Langkah pencegahan juga dilakukan dengan rajin sosialisasi ke sekolah-sekolah tentang HIV/AIDS dan dampak buruk seks bebas serta razia WTS ilegal yang mangkal di mal-mal," katanya.

Puluhan PSK di Tulungagung 'terlantar'

Puluhan pekerja seks komersial (PSK) yang dulu menghuni dua eks-lokalisasi Ngujang dan Kaliwungu, Kabupaten Tulungagung, Jawa Timur kini terlantar. Puluhan PSK itu tak lagi mendapat pendampingan atau pembinaan dari pemerintah daerah.

Pihak Dinas Sosial Tenaga Kerja dan Transmigrasi (Dinsosnakertran) dan Badan Pemberdayaan Perlindungan Perempuan Anak dan Keluarga Berencana (BP3KB) sama-sama menolak bertanggung jawab terhadap re-sosialisasi puluhan PSK Ngujang dan Kaliwungu tersebut. "Penanganan PSK sudah tidak menjadi kewenangan Disosnakertrans," kata Sekretaris Dinas Sosial Tenaga Kerja dan Transmigrasi (Dinsosnakertran) Tulungagung, Zainal Mukhodim.

Ia berdalih, pengawasan dan pembinaan para PSK penghuni eks-Lokalisasi Ngujang maupun Kaliwungu bukan tanggung jawab mereka. Menurutnya, penanganan PSK itu masuk program pengentasan di bawah komando Badan Pemberdayaan Perlindungan Perempuan Anak dan Keluarga Berencana (BP3KB).

Di Tulungagung sudah tidak ada lagi lokalisasi sehingga program pembinaan maupun pemberdayaan mantan penghuni dua sentra pelacuran terbesar di daerahnya itu tidak lagi dijalankan. "Program resosialisasi (mengembalikan fungsi sosial mereka) PSK sejauh ini sudah dijalankan, tapi jika orangnya sudah tidak ada tentu kami juga tidak bisa melakukan apa-apa, dan ini menjadi tanggung jawab semua pihak, bukan hanya BP3KB," kata Ketua Tim Resosialisasi PSK BP3KB Tulungagung, Winarno

Dari dua eks-lokalisasi Ngujang dan Kaliwungu tercatat ada sekitar 40 PSK yang berdomisili asli di Tulungagung. Dari jumlah itu, 27 orang di antaranya telah memiliki kegiatan alih profesi, sementara 13 sisanya tidak terdeteksi atau tidak diketahui keberadaan dan aktivitasnya.

"Ada kemungkinan mereka masih menjalani profesi lama (sebagai PSK)," ujar Winarno.

Di sekitar bekas bangunan lokalisasi Ngujang dan Kaliwungu, aktivitas bisnis prostitusi sampai saat ini masih terlihat. Meski tidak lagi dilakukan secara terang-terangan, di rumah-rumah bordil sebagaimana saat dua eks-lokalisasi ini masih eksis, praktik pelacuran masih mudah ditemukan dengan cara terselubung.

"Iya masih ada memang, beberapa waktu lalu juga ada yang ditangkap satpol PP karena prostitusi liar," ujar Herlambang, warga sekitar eks-Lokalisasi Ngujang, Kecamatan Ngantru

Razia temukan sepasang pelajar SMAN 'ngamar'

Polresta Banjarmasin melakukan razia penyakit masyarakat (Pekat) untuk meminimalisir tindakan pelanggaran hukum. Ketika menggerebek sebuah penginapan di kawasan kampung Melayu, Banjarmasin, petugas menemukan sepasang pelajar 'ngamar' melakukan perbuatan mesum.

Dalam pengakuannya, pasangan yang berinisial YS (17) dan OP (17) itu merupakan siswa kelas 3 di salah satu SMA Negeri di kawasan Belitung Banjarmasin. Selain pasangan pelajar mesum itu, petugas juga menggiring lima pasangan lainnya yang bukan pasangan sah atau bukan suami istri.

"Kegiatan ini harus terus dilakukan dengan tujuan untuk memelihara keamanan dan ketertiban di masyarakat di wilayah hukum Polresta Banjarmasin agar selalu dalam keadaan kondusif," kata Kepala Satuan Sabhara Polresta Banjarmasin, Kompol Haryono MT seperti dikutip Antara, Minggu (10/3).

Para pasangan mesum itu dibawa ke Satuan Sabhara Polresta Banjarmasin untuk dilakukan pendataan dan pembinaan, jika memenuhi unsur tindak pidana ringan maka akan di sidangkan.

"Seharusnya pemerintah setempat tanggap dan turun tangan untuk melakukan penindakan terhadap penginapan tersebut, sebab sering kali ditemukan pelajar dan mahasiswa sedang mesum, karena itu sudah jelas dari berita di media cetak maupun elektronik serta laporan masyarakat yang masuk," kata Haryono.

Di pulau terluar Indonesia ada juga komplek pelacuran

Di kawasan terluar Indonesia rupanya tak bebas dari prostitusi. Pergaulan pun cukup bebas sehingga membuat pemerintah geleng-geleng kepala.

Dinas Kesehatan bekerja sama dengan Komisi Penanggulangan AIDS Daerah (KPAD) Kabupaten Nunukan Kaltim menemukan satu keluarga di Pulau Sebatik menderita AIDS.

Staf pada Bidang Penanggulangan Masalah Penyakit dan Bencana Dinkes Nunukan, Suriani, Jumat, mengatakan selama 2013 ini terdapat tujuh orang penderita AIDS baru ditemukan.

Ketujuh orang itu, lanjut dia, empat orang berada di Pulau Sebatik yang merupakan satu keluarga terdiri orangtua dan dua anaknya, dan tiga orang di Kecamatan Nunukan.

"Temuan itu pada bulan Januari dan Februari (2013) melalui laporan dari Puskesmas Nunukan dan Sei Nyamuk Pulau Sebatik," ujar Suriani yang juga tim konselor KPAD Nunukan. Demikian dikutip antara.

Sebenarnya, ketujuh orang ini telah lama mengalami penyakit yang mematikan tersebut tetapi baru diketahui setelah memeriksakan diri di puskesmas.

Suriani menjelaskan, alasan penderita enggan memeriksa diri ke puskesmas atau rumah sakit adalah malu kepada sanak keluarga dan masyarakat sekitarnya jangan sampai dikucilkan.

"Jadi ini persoalan stigma, takut dikucilkan sehingga tidak mau memeriksakan diri selama ini," bebernya.

"Mereka ini penderita lama tapi baru terdeteksi karena baru memeriksakan diri di puskesmas," ujarnya.

Kepada ketujuh penderita AIDS ini, dia mengatakan telah dilakukan pengobatan intensif dan merujuk ke RSUD Nunukan yang dianggap sudah parah. Kedua orangtuanya telah dirujuk ke rumah sakit di Tawau Malaysia atas permintaan keluarganya sementara anaknya hanya diobati intensif.

Sedangkan tiga orang lainnya yang berada di Kecamatan Nunukan sendiri, kata dia, satu orang masih menunggu hasil pemeriksaan spesial penyakit dalam, satu orang dirujuk ke rumah sakit di Tawau Malaysia atas permintaan keluarganya dan satu orang lagi yang telah dipastikan menderita AIDS dalam pengawasan Dinkes Nunukan.

Suriani menegaskan, ketujuh penderita AIDS yang ditemukan pada 2013 ini semuanya disebabkan oleh pergaulan seks bebas dimana pada kedua pulau (Nunukan dan Sebatik) pergaulan sangat bebas.

"Di Pulau Nunukan ini kan ada lokalisasi seks yang di Jalan Persemaian. Begitu juga di Pulau Sebatik terdapat kompleks minum minuman keras yang tentunya tidak terbebas dari pergaulan seks," jelasnya.

Menurut Suriani, dari tujuh penderita AIDS yang terdeteksi tersebut lima orang dinyatakan telah stadium dua dan tiga sedang dua orang yang masih usia balita di Pulau Sebatik masih stadium satu.

Prescription Corporal strong Subagyo 15 minutes beaten army one company!

Solo military know how strong Subagyo Cpl. Imagine, he was able to run 24 hours. Hes strong push up 21 hours 40 minutes. Not quite up there. Ever, the TNI Day, October 5, 2011, Subagyo commit extreme acts in front of dozens of people and rickshaw pullers around SD Marsudirini Solo. He drank brake fluid, water bath chili, and deadly cigarette fire by chewing.

Places that only lasts 15 minutes, Bagyo start by drinking brake fluid attraction, then bath with water mixed with a pestle and mortar chili. After that went to dozens of rickshaw pullers Bagyo holding lit cigarettes and the cigarettes, one after the other and then turn off the fire by chewing. Even more astonishing, once in commemoration Ambarawa Juang Kartika in 2010, Corporal Subagyo, beaten by colleagues of the company. If the TNI, a company of about 100 soldiers.

I ask teens military police to beat me," said Subagyo. According to Subagyo, there is a company of soldiers who beat him, up to 15 minutes. He was able to survive! So, what is the secret Corporal Subagyo be that powerful? Subagyo claimed to have no knowledge of black magic or any immune. While shirtless and showing off his chest moving, chattering Subagyo, excess because he has behaved healthy life every day. Eat regularly, four of five perfectly healthy, said Subagyo to merdeka.com at his residence, Kadipiro, Solo

But of course there are recipes in addition to regular eating four of five perfectly healthy. Corporal Subago slowly unlock the secrets. What is it? This is the secret: drinking egg yolk and egg white village 15 grains a day. Certainly not just eat to maintain stamina affairs. He also ran diligent exercise and karate. Subagyo now registered as the holder AND II karate. Other recipes are practicing discipline. Without it, Subagyo will not get the title of strong soldier, a great soldier

Begini Cara Jokowi Lepaskan Diri dari Hercules

"Itu ada yang jatuh, uangnya siapa tuh?" Kalimat itu sontak membuat belasan wartawan di kompleks parlemen Senayan, Ahad 10 Maret 2013, yang mengerubunginya menengok ke bawah. Mereka bisa saja akan terus mencari-cari jika saja tak terdengar suara tawa dari pengucap kalimat tadi.

"Aaah… Bapak bisa saja nih," ujar seorang wartawan, yang diikuti tawa lainnya.

Begitulah Gubernur DKI Jakarta Joko Widodo berhasil melepaskan diri dari desakan untuk memberi pernyataan tentang penangkapan Ketua Umum Gerakan Rakyat Indonesia Baru Hercules Rozario Marshal. Wartawan memburu pernyataan Jokowi karena organisasi dan tokohnya itu memang pernah membantu dia dan pasangannya, Basuki T. Purnama, dalam kampanye pemilihan gubernur tahun lalu. Bahkan Hercules hadir dan duduk di bangku VIP saat pelantikan Jokowi dan Basuki  sebagai Gubernur dan Wakil Gubernur DKI di ruang sidang paripurna DPRD DKI, Oktober tahun lalu.

Jokowi sebenarnya sudah sempat menjawab. "Itu tanya ke Pak Kapolda," katanya.

Tapi wartawan tak puas atas sepenggal kalimat itu. Begitu pun pernyataannya bahwa Pemerintah Provinsi DKI Jakarta selalu membantu kepolisian dengan mengerahkan petugas Satuan Polisi Pamong Praja di beberapa titik, seperti pasar dan terminal.

Lantaran Jokowi terus didesak untuk menyampaikan sikapnya, terjadilah pengecohan uang jatuh itu.

Sebelumnya, Partai Gerakan Indonesia Raya (Gerindra) menyatakan bersedia memberi bantuan hukum bagi Hercules. "Orang biasa saja akan kami bantu kalau membutuhkan pengacara," kata Ahmad Muzani, sekretaris jenderal partai yang memasangkan Basuki T. Purnama sebagai Wakil Jokowi.

Adapun Basuki mengaku terkejut mendengar penangkapan itu. Basuki—akrab disapa Ahok—juga menyatakan tidak terlalu mengenal sosok Hercules. Pertemuan keduanya disebutkan terakhir kali pada 20 Februari 2013 di Balai Kota DKI. "Saya tidak begitu kenal. Yang aku tahu dia baik, usahanya juga bagus," katanya kepada kantor berita Antara.

Sebelumnya Polda Metro Jaya menangkap Hercules dan puluhan anak buahnya, Jumat petang lalu, 8 Maret 2013, gara-gara mereka merusak rumah toko milik PT Tjakra Multi Strategi di Srengseng, Kembangan, Jakarta Barat. Polisi menuduh Hercules dan kelompoknya memeras di ruko tersebut. Hercules dijerat pula dengan pasal menghasut, pengeroyokan, kepemilihan senjata tajam, dan melawan petugas yang sah. Polisi menyebut Hercules ditangkap karena ada laporan dari masyarakat bahwa dia memeras.

Sulap kotoran sapi jadi parfum, 2 siswa dikirim ke olimpiade

Dua siswa kelas XI IPA SMA Muhammadiyah Babat, Kabupaten Lamongan, Jawa Timur, Dwi Nailul Izzah dan Rintya Miki Aprianti akan mewakili Indonesia pada olimpiade internasional "International Environment Project Olympiad" (INEPO) di Istanbul, Turki. Ajang itu akan dilaksanakan pada 17-20 Mei 2013.

Menurut Kepala Bagian Humas Pemkab Lamongan Muhamad Zamroni, kedua siswa itu mewakili Indonesia setelah melakukan penelitian ilmiahnya berjudul "Limbah Peternakan Sapi" sebagai pengharum ruangan ramah lingkungan. Karya ilmiah itu mengalahkan 1.000 peserta dalam ajang "Indonesian Science Project Olympiad" (ISPO) yang berlangsung di Jakarta pada 26-28 Februari 2013.

"Sukses itu membawa keduanya menjadi wakil Indonesia di ajang internasional yang akan berlangsung di Turki," kata Zamroni seperti dilansir dari Antara, Minggu (10/3).

Sementara itu, Dwi Nailul Izzah mengaku karya ilmiahnya itu menjelaskan tentang pengolahan limbah kotoran (feses) sapi menjadi cairan pengharuman ruangan dengan aroma alami tumbuh-tumbuhan. "Pengharum ruangan yang kami hasilkan murni berbau alami seperti tumbuhan yang menjadi makanan sapi, bukan karena ditambahi dengan bahan kimia agar bisa berbau wangi," katanya.

Dalam karyanya, kedua siswa itu juga membuat kajian ekonomi mengenai pangsa pasar produk pengharum ruangan tersebut. "Pengharum ruangan ini sehat karena tidak mengandung bahan kimia berbahaya, seperti "benzo acetan" layaknya produk pengharum yang ada di pasaran, dan juga ekonomis karena ongkos produksinya sangat murah, yakni Rp 21 ribu untuk kemasan 225 mililiter," katanya.

Sementara, untuk produk pengharum ruangan di pasaran harganya mencapai Rp 39.900 untuk kemasan 275 gram. Oleh karena itu, pihaknya akan segera mengajukan hak paten atas karya itu, sebab sesuai hasil pantauan kedua siswa di situs Dirjen Hak Kekayaan Intelektual (HAKI) belum ada paten produk sejenis.

"Karena itulah, karya kami nampaknya berpeluang besar untuk bisa mendapatkan hak paten," ucapnya.

Sementara Bupati Lamongan Fadeli berharap karya ilmiah kedua siswa tidak hilang ditelan bumi. Ke depan harus ada upaya implementasi dengan bekerja sama pihak ketiga untuk pemasarannya.

"Peluang mereka di ajang internasional juga cukup terbuka melihat hasilnya yang cukup bagus, dan sangat berpotensi bisa memenangkan di ajang internasional," katanya.

Sementara itu, Dwi Nailul Izzah merupakan siswi kelahiran Pucuk, Lamongan, 14 Desember 1996, dan merupakan anak kedua dari dua bersaudara pasangan Haris A Salim dan Zayyaroh. Sedangkan Rintya Miki Aprianti lahir di Jambi pada 17 April 1996 yang merupakan putri pertama dari tiga bersaudara pasangan Maliki dan Juwami.

Hundreds Dead Pig Floating on the River

More than 900 pigs found dead floating in the Huangpu River in Shanghai. In fact, the river is is one source of drinking water for the citizens of the city of Shanghai. Hundreds of dead pigs found in Chinese river Shanghai authorites have retrieved more than 900 dead pigs from a local river and are Investigating what may be Causing the Deaths. Reports of the existence of the carcasses have been received by the authorities since early last week. Efforts to remove the carcasses that can only be done during the day for doing it at night would be very dangerous. About where the origin of the pig carcasses, are still being investigated. So far, there is no evidence that the carcasses were deliberately discarded or animal epidemic. As stated by the agricultural committee of Shanghai as quoted Yahoo! News. The test results showed that the water quality of the river is not affected. However, to ensure the safety of drinking water, authorities have pledged to tighten and intensify testing the cleaning.

Voices of women in technology

A diverse workforce is critical in helping us build products that can help people change the world. That includes diversity of all life experiences, including gender.



Women were some of the first programmers and continue to make a major impact on the programming world today. We think it’s important to highlight the great work women are doing in computer science, to help provide role models for young women thinking about careers in computing.



Tomorrow is International Women’s Day, and as one of our contributions to the celebration, we’re proud to support Voices Global Conference, presented by Global Tech Women. As part of this 24-hour live streamed event, Google will provide more than a dozen hours of free talks featuring women working in computer science, beginning today. To access the full schedule and our ongoing broadcasts, see our section on the Voices website, which will be updated throughout the day.



The Voices Global Conference is the brainchild of Global Tech Women’s founder Deanna Kosaraju, who also started India’s Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in 2010 with grant support from Google. The India conferences, which provide a forum for women to share their professional and research work in computing, have grown rapidly, with more than 800 attendees in 2012. So when Deanna proposed this global, 24-hour streamed conference, we knew it was a great opportunity to help women and other audiences around the world learn more and get inspired about the contributions women are making to technology and computer science.



Our sessions will feature a range of material, from new episodes of the Women Techmakers series and interviews with women leaders like the head of Lexity India Mani Abrol, to discussions focusing on technologies like Google Compute Engine. For a sneak peek of the type of content we’ll be providing, check out Pavni’s story below, produced in conjunction with PBS’ MAKERS series. I’ve provided advice to many young people in India interested in studying computer science and pursuing their own dreams—so Pavni’s tenacity, coupled with the encouragement and support she received from her father, resonated with me. We’re excited to share her story and others like it alongside technical conversations and discussions on women in technology as part of this conference.







I hope you’ll join us for our sessions—and in the meantime, you can learn more about our efforts to support women at Google and beyond.



Posted by Beryl Nelson, Software Engineering Manager

Art, Copy & Code: a series of experiments to re-imagine advertising

Last year, we started a program to partner with advertisers and agencies to re-imagine how brands tell stories in a connected world. Project Re: Brief set out to recreate some of the advertising industry’s most iconic, classic campaigns using the latest technology tools. This year we’re expanding that program to work with some of today’s most iconic brands and innovative marketers, in our new project: Art, Copy & Code.



Art, Copy & Code is a series of projects and experiments to show how creativity and technology can work hand in hand. Some of these will include familiar brands like Volkswagen, Burberry and adidas—projects developed in partnership with their creative teams and agencies. Others will be creative experiments with innovative filmmakers, creative directors and technologists to explore how brands can connect with consumers through a whole range of digital tools—including ads, mobile apps and social experiences. Our first partner project is a new social driving experience—Volkswagen Smileage.



Building off their 2012 campaign, “It’s not the miles, it’s how you live them,” Volkswagen Smileage is a mobile app and web service that aims to add a little bit of fun to every drive, from your daily commutes to holiday road trips. The app measures the fun factor of each trip using a metric called “smileage,” based on signals like weather, traffic, location, time and social interactions (e.g., a long drive on a sunny Saturday afternoon might accumulate more smileage than a morning commute in the snow). You can use it with any car, not just Volkswagens.



Powered by the new Google+ sign-in, you can choose to share Smileage experience with friends and family. For example, during a road trip, photos and videos taken by you and your co-passengers can be automatically added to a live interactive map. The inspiration for the service came from a recent study showing that every day, 144 million Americans on average spend 52 minutes in a car—76 percent of them alone. We wanted to make that time a more shareable experience. Volkswagen Smileage will be available soon in beta—you can sign up on this webpage for early access.

We’ll have many more experiments to share in the Art, Copy & Code project soon—subscribe for updates at ArtCopyCode.com. We’re committed to investing in technology and tools over the long term to help brands and their agencies succeed not just today, but in a digital future that will look very different.



If you’re planning on attending SXSW, stop by the Google Playground on March 9 to see demos of these experiments, or attend our talk on March 10.



Posted by Aman Govil, Art, Copy & Code Project Lead

Public Alerts for Google Search, Google Now and Google Maps available in Japan

With nearly 5,000 earthquakes a year, it’s important for people in Japan to have crisis preparedness and response information available at their fingertips. And from our own research, we know that when a disaster strikes, people turn to the Internet for more information about what is happening.



With this in mind, we’re launching Google Public Alerts today in Japan—the first international expansion of a service we debuted last year in the United States. Google Public Alerts is a platform designed to provide accurate and relevant emergency alerts when and where you’re searching for them online.



Relevant earthquake and tsunami warnings for Japan will now appear on Google Search, Google Maps and Google Now when you search online during a time of crisis. If a major earthquake alert is issued in Kanagawa Prefecture, for example, the alert information will appear on your desktop and mobile screens when you search for relevant information on Google Search and Google Maps.

Example of a Google Search result on a tablet showing a tsunami warning

Example of a tsunami warning on Google Maps

If you click “詳細” (“More info”) right under the alert, you’ll see more details about the announcement, including the full description from the Japan Meteorological Agency, a link to their site, and other useful information like observed arrival times and wave heights for tsunamis.

Example of how a tsunami alert would work in Fukushima

And when you open Google Now on your Android device, recommended actions and information will be tailored to where you are. For example, if you happen to be in Tokyo at a time when a tsunami alert is issued, Google Now will show you a card containing information about the tsunami alert, as well as any available evacuation instructions:

Example of a tsunami warning card on Google Now

We’re able to provide Public Alerts in Japan thanks to the Japan Meteorological Agency, whose publication of data enables Google and others to make critical and life-saving information more widely available.



We hope our technology, including Public Alerts, will help people better prepare for future crises and create more far-reaching support for crisis recovery. This is why in Japan, Google has newly partnered with 14 Japanese prefectures and cities, including seven from the Tōhoku region, to make their government data available online and more easily accessible to users, both during a time of crisis and after. The devastating Tōhoku Earthquake struck Japan only two years ago, and the region is still slowly recovering from the tragedy.



We look forward to expanding Google Public Alerts to more countries and working with more warning providers soon. We also encourage potential partners to read our FAQ and to consider putting data in an open format, such as the Common Alerting Protocol. To learn more about Public Alerts, visit our Public Alerts homepage.



Posted by Yu Chen, Partner Technology Manager

Celebrating Google Play’s first birthday

Accessing digital entertainment should be simple, whether you like to read books on your tablet, listen to music on your phone and computer, or watch movies on all three. That’s why one year ago today we launched Google Play, where you can find and enjoy your favorite music, movies, books and apps on your Android phone and tablet, or on the web.



Google Play has grown rapidly in the last year, bringing you more content in more languages and places around the globe. In addition to offering more than 700,000 apps and games, we’ve partnered with all of the major music companies, movie studios and publishers to bring you the music, movies, TV shows, books and magazines you love. And we’ve added more ways for you to buy them, including paying through your phone bill and gift cards, which we're beginning to roll out in the U.K. this week.



Since no birthday is complete without presents, we’re celebrating with a bunch of special offers across the store on songs, TV shows, movies and books. We’re even offering a collection of games with some fun birthday surprises created by developers.



It’s been a busy year, but we’re just getting started. We look forward to many more years of bringing you the best in entertainment!

Posted by Jamie Rosenberg, VP of Digital Content, Google Play

Transparency Report: Shedding more light on National Security Letters

Our users trust Google with a lot of very important data, whether it’s emails, photos, documents, posts or videos. We work exceptionally hard to keep that information safe—hiring some of the best security experts in the world, investing millions of dollars in technology and baking security protections such as 2-step verification into our products.



Of course, people don’t always use our services for good, and it’s important that law enforcement be able to investigate illegal activity. This may involve requests for personal information. When we receive these requests, we:

• scrutinize them carefully to ensure they satisfy the law and our policies;


• seek to narrow requests that are overly broad;


• notify users when appropriate so they can contact the entity requesting the information or consult a lawyer; and


• require that government agencies use a search warrant if they’re seeking search query information or private content, like Gmail and documents, stored in a Google Account.

When conducting national security investigations, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation can issue a National Security Letter (NSL) to obtain identifying information about a subscriber from telephone and Internet companies. The FBI has the authority to prohibit companies from talking about these requests. But we’ve been trying to find a way to provide more information about the NSLs we get—particularly as people have voiced concerns about the increase in their use since 9/11.



Starting today, we’re now including data about NSLs in our Transparency Report. We’re thankful to U.S. government officials for working with us to provide greater insight into the use of NSLs. Visit our page on user data requests in the U.S. and you’ll see, in broad strokes, how many NSLs for user data Google receives, as well as the number of accounts in question. In addition, you can now find answers to some common questions we get asked about NSLs on our Transparency Report FAQ.

You'll notice that we're reporting numerical ranges rather than exact numbers. This is to address concerns raised by the FBI, Justice Department and other agencies that releasing exact numbers might reveal information about investigations. We plan to update these figures annually.



Posted by Richard Salgado, Legal Director, Law Enforcement and Information Security



(Cross-posted on the Public Policy Blog)

Introducing Art Talks on Google+

An excellent guide often best brings an art gallery or museum’s collections to life. Starting this week, we’re hoping to bring this experience online with “Art Talks,” a series of Hangouts on Air on our Google Art Project Google+ page. Each month, curators, museum directors, historians and educators from some of the world’s most renowned cultural institutions will reveal the hidden stories behind particular works, examine the curation process and provide insights into particular masterpieces or artists.



The first guided visit will be held this Wednesday, March 6 at 8pm ET from The Museum of Modern Art. Deborah Howes, Director of Digital Learning, along with a panel of artists and students, will discuss how to teach art online. To post a question, visit the event page. If this talk falls too late for you to tune in live, you can watch afterward on our Google Art Project YouTube channel.



The next talk is from London. On March 20, Caroline Campbell and Arnika Schmidt from the National Gallery will discuss depictions of the female nude. Details are available on the Art Project’s event page. In April we’ll host a panel examining one of the Google Art Project’s popular gigapixel works, Bruegel’s “Tower of Babel,” featuring Peter Parshall, curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.







Additional talks are planned by curators from high-profile institutions such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico and the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar.



Google Art Project aims to make art more accessible to all. We hope that Art Talks is the next step in bringing art to your armchair, wherever you are in the world, with just a click of a button. Stay tuned to the Art Project and Cultural Institute Google+ pages for more information on dates and times of these online lectures.



Posted by Lucy Schwartz, Google Cultural Institute

Making the cloud more accessible with Chrome and Android

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

Support free expression: Vote for the Netizen of the Year

One in three Internet users suffers from restricted access to the web due to government censorship, filtering or online surveillance, according to the free expression advocacy group Reporters Without Borders. Around the world, bloggers and cyber-dissidents are jailed for expressing their views. Reporters Without Borders makes sure their struggles are not forgotten.



We believe in a free and open Internet where everyone can express their opinions and learn from others. For this reason, for the past several years we’ve partnered with Reporters Without Borders to organize their annual Netizen of the Year Award, which honors an Internet user, blogger or cyber-dissident who has made a notable contribution in defense of online freedom of expression.



This year for the first time, Reporters Without Borders is asking you to help decide who will win the award. Nine “netizens”—from Bulgaria, Egypt, Honduras, Iran, Kazakhstan, Mali, Russia, Senegal and Vietnam—have been nominated for consideration. Watch the videos showing their stories and then vote at youtube.com/netizen2013.

We hope you’ll be as inspired as we have been by these brave people. The winner, based on votes from people like you around the world, will be announced on March 7. He or she will be invited to the award ceremony taking place at Google’s Paris office on March 12—the World Day Against Cyber Censorship.



Posted by Florian Maganza, Policy Analyst, Paris

Race to win on big and small screens with Chrome Super Sync Sports

Smartphones and tablets are great for all sorts of games, and lately we've been thinking about new ways to play. Chrome Super Sync Sports is a new Chrome Experiment that uses the unique features of mobile devices to create a new gaming experience on big and small screens. In this game up to four friends can compete in running, swimming and cycling on a shared computer screen, using their smartphones or tablets as game controllers.







To get started, you’ll need a computer and a smartphone or tablet that run a modern browser, like Chrome. Visit chrome.com/supersyncsports on your computer, pick a game and decide if you’re playing solo or with friends. Next, visit g.co/super in Chrome on your smartphone or tablet and type in the unique code shown on your computer screen. You’ve now “super sync”ed your mobile device with your computer, and you’re ready to race!



Use the arrow pad on your smartphone or tablet to select one of 50 athletes and prepare yourself for the competition. The motions you make on your mobile touchscreen will move your athlete on your computer screen. To move your athlete forward and win the race, you need to make the correct gestures as quickly as possible. The better you are, the higher your chances of making it to the global leaderboard.

Select your athlete by using the keypad arrows on your mobile



Race using your smartphone or tablet touchscreen



Up to four friends can play using a shared computer screen

Chrome Super Sync Sports is available for Chrome v15 and above, and for Android 4.0+ and iOS 4.3+ devices. It uses the latest modern web technologies, including HTML5 features such as WebSockets for real-time gaming synchronicity on desktop and mobile, and Canvas and CSS3 for rich and engaging visuals. For more detailed information on the technologies used, see the “About” page.



On your marks, get set, race for your place on the World Leaderboard!



Posted by Steve Vranakis, Executive Creative Director, Google Creative Lab

From top dresses to last-minute surprises, Google Trends from the Oscars

As millions of people tuned in to watch the 85th Academy Awards, many also turned to the web to keep up with the action. Here's a look at the Oscar nominees and moments that captured the world's imagination and brought people to Google Search.



The award for “most-searched” nominee goes to...

We took a look at search interest in all of the Oscar nominees across categories. Here's a list of the most searched:

At the end of the show, Best Picture winner “Argo” held the #6 spot, followed by Ang Lee, Christoph Waltz, “Silver Linings Playbook” and Halle Berry.



The 10 most searched red carpet dresses

The red carpet is many people's favorite part of the show. While no Oscar is awarded for "best dress," we wanted to know which gowns caught people's attention this year. The results are in, and the winners are...

Beyond these top five, Brandi Glanville, Amanda Seyfried, Naomi Watts, Kate Hudson and Zoe Saldana took the next top spots.



The moments that caught our attention

This year's Oscars brought with it a number of unexpected moments that grabbed our attention. Early in the show, Seth MacFarlane was visited by William Shatner in full Captain Kirk regalia, come from the future to save Seth’s monologue; at 8:36pm ET, searches for [kirk] spiked to almost 1,500 per minute. Later in the show, “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Skyfall” tied for sound editing, and people flocked to the web with questions. Searches for [tie] spiked to more than 5,000 per minute, with many people wanting to know [has there ever been a tie in the oscars]. And in a final surprise, First Lady Michelle Obama introduced the Best Picture nominees and opened the winning envelope for “Argo.” Searches for [michelle obama] spiked to 4,500 per minute.



For more, check out Google Trends and visit our Oscars site

Before the ceremony started, we shared our “picks”—who would win if the Oscars were determined by search volume alone. Out of the six Google Search Picks, four actually won! Visit Google Trends to explore all the topics you're curious about. And if you want one more tug at the ol’ heartstrings, enjoy a look at the year’s top movies on our Oscars site.







Posted by Nemo Tamir, Software Engineer

Our first-ever Google Journalism Fellowship winners

More than 2,300 students from across the globe applied for the first Google Journalism Fellowship. The interest the Fellowship attracted clearly demonstrates the need for these types of opportunities, especially as the worlds of journalism and technology increasingly become one.



The students who have been picked for the 10-week program will get the chance to work with organizations focused on exciting projects ranging from those steeped in investigative journalism to those working for press freedom around the world and to those that are helping the industry figure out its future in the digital age. They will also spend a week with the Knight Foundation and a week with Google.



We had so many applications—on the last day they poured in at a rate of roughly one every two minutes—that we extended our review period by a week to make selections. Our host organizations had the unenviable task of choosing just one Fellow out of the mass of talented students who applied; the Nieman Journalism Lab is taking two Fellows.



The Fellows who will take part in the program are:

• Center for Investigative Reporting - Nathaniel Lash of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign


• Committee to Protect Journalists - Lauren Fedor of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism


• Investigative Reporters & Editors - Nicole Pasulka of New York University


• Nieman Journalism Lab - Sarah Darville of Columbia University and Linda Kinstler of Bowdoin College


• Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism - Jan Lauren Boyles of American University


• Poynter - Anna Li from Stanford University


• ProPublica - Stephen Suen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Thank you to everyone who made the effort to apply and to the host organizations for their hard work.



Posted by Maggie Shiels, Google Communications and former BBC journalist

The Chromebook Pixel, for what’s next

Chromebooks were designed to make computing speedy, simple and secure. For many of you, they have become the perfect, additional (and yes, affordable) computer: ideal for catching up on emails, sharing documents and chatting via Hangouts. We’re tremendously grateful to our partners—Samsung, Acer, Lenovo and HP—for their commitment. The momentum has been remarkable: the Samsung Chromebook has been #1 on Amazon’s bestseller list for laptops every day since it launched 125 days ago in the U.S., and Chromebooks now represent more than 10 percent of notebook sales at Currys PC World, the largest electronics retailer in the U.K.



So what’s next? Today we’re excited to announce our newest laptop—the Chromebook Pixel—which brings together the best in hardware, software and design to inspire the next generation of Chromebooks. With the Pixel, we set out to rethink all elements of a computer in order to design the best laptop possible, especially for power users who have fully embraced the cloud. The philosophy of Chrome has always been to minimize the “chrome” of the browser. In much the same way, the goal of the Pixel is to make the pixels disappear, giving people the best web experience.

Let’s start with the screen. This Chromebook has the highest pixel density (239 pixels per inch) of any laptop screen on the market today. Packed with 4.3 million pixels, the display offers sharp text, vivid colors and extra-wide viewing angles. With a screen this rich and engaging, you want to reach out and touch it—so we added touch for a more immersive experience. Touch makes it simple and intuitive to do things like organize tabs, swipe through apps and edit photos with the tip of your finger.



The Pixel has been engineered with the highest quality components to ensure it’s comfortable to use all day long and meets the needs of demanding power users. The body of the Pixel is made from an anodized aluminum alloy to create a smooth and durable surface; vents are hidden, screws are invisible and the stereo speakers are seamlessly tucked away beneath the backlit keyboard. The touchpad is made from etched glass, analyzed and honed using a laser microscope to ensure precise navigation. The Pixel also has powerful, full-range speakers for crisp sound, a 720p webcam for clear video, and a total of three microphones designed to cancel out surrounding noise.



Other aspects of the Pixel include:

• Speed: Speed has been a core tenet of Chrome and Chromebooks since the beginning. For Pixel, it’s critical that the overall experience, everything from loading webpages to switching between apps, is near instant. Powered by an Intel® Core™ i5 Processor and a solid state Flash memory architecture, the Pixel performs remarkably fast.
  
  
  
  


• Connectivity: The Pixel has an industry-leading WiFi range thanks to carefully positioned antennas and dual-band support. Long-term evolution (LTE) is engineered directly into the machine, delivering fast connectivity across Verizon's network, the largest, fastest 4G LTE network in the U.S. (LTE model optional). It also comes with 12 free GoGo® Inflight Internet passes for those times you need to connect while in the air.
  
  
  
  


• Storage: Since this Chromebook is for people who live in the cloud, one terabyte of Google Drive cloud storage* is included with the Pixel. This enables you to save, access and share photos, videos, documents, and all of your stuff from all of your devices, from anywhere.

Finally, as you’ve come to expect from all Chromebooks, all of your favorite Google products like Search, Gmail, YouTube, Maps and Google+ Hangouts are integrated and just a click away. And since it’s based on Chrome OS, the Pixel boots up in seconds and never slows down, requires almost zero setup or maintenance, and comes with built-in virus protection. Best of all, it stays up to date with automatic updates every few weeks.







If you want to be part of the next step in the Chromebook journey, the Pixel will be available for purchase starting today on Google Play in the U.S. and U.K., and soon on BestBuy.com. The WiFi version ($1,299 U.S. and £1,049 U.K.) will start shipping next week and the LTE version ($1,449) will ship in the U.S. in April. If you’re interested in a hands-on experience, you can visit select Best Buy (U.S.) and Currys PC World (U.K.) store locations.



It’s one of the most exciting times in the history of personal computing, thanks to a rapid pace of change, innovation and consumer adoption of devices. Our goal is to continue to push the experience forward for everyone, working with the entire ecosystem to build the next generation of Chrome OS devices. We hope you enjoy what’s next.



Posted by Linus Upson, Vice President of Engineering



*You will have 1TB of free storage for 3 years, starting on the date you redeem the offer on eligible Chrome devices.

Doodle 4 Google: A stately competition

Are you a young artist from California? Alabama? Or Indiana (like me!)? Well, get doodling with the topic “My Best Day Ever…” for a chance to see your very own artwork on the Google homepage—and help represent your piece of the union.



Today marks the 30-day countdown to the March 22 submission deadline for the U.S. Doodle 4 Google competition. And in the spirit of friendly competition, we’re inviting you to rally fellow students and teachers in your state to take part in Doodle 4 Google’s 30-day Race to the Finish with an interactive map that shows the top submitting states. States are ranked in order of submissions relative to student population size.

Whether your state tops the submissions race or not, you still have the chance to become the individual state winner. The 50 state winners will win an all-expenses paid trip to New York City in May for the final awards ceremony, where we’ll reveal the winning doodle. The national winner will see his or her doodle on the Google homepage, win a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 technology grant for his or her school. Download an entry form today to get doodling!



Fun fact for those of you who can’t get enough doodles: we run Doodle 4 Google competitions in many countries worldwide, year-round. Vote for your Irish favorites now—the winner will appear on www.google.ie on April 16.



As always, happy doodling!



Posted by Ryan Germick, Doodle Team Lead

Oscar fans: we’ve got you covered

We all love a night at the movies. Whether it’s romance, horror, or action adventure, there's no better way to step into another world—even if just for a couple of hours. And for the past 85 years, millions of people throughout the world have gathered around their TVs to watch the Oscars and celebrate the people who make these moments possible.



For the first time, we've created a one-stop shop to help you get more of what you love about the Oscars.



First, if you missed any of the nominees in the theaters, don’t fret! We’ve put together a Year in Review video of 2012’s top movies. Take a whirlwind tour through your favorite moments, or see what you may have missed:







Want to explore more about the nominees? You can:

• Click through our movie and celebrity knowledge graphs to learn more about your favorite picks, directly on the page.


• Explore our customized Google Map, which shows you where some of your favorite nominated movies were filmed, as well as where the nominees were born. It’s geography with a celeb twist.


• Download the Official Oscars App for Android, available for the first time in the Play Store.

Or, maybe you’re making bets with your friends on who’s going to win... Try taking a hint from Google Trends and see who the most searched-for nominees of 2012 were. You never know—the actual winners may end up being pretty similar to Google’s Search “winners.”



For those of you with the itch to win an Oscar yourself, see what it feels like in a Google+ Hangout—we've got a new effect that will make you feel like a star. And if you end up being so inspired by the idea of holding an Oscar, then we’d also like to hear what you’d say if you won the real thing, using the Oscars “Acceptance Speech” widget.



Oscars night is about celebrating the movies—whether you starred in them or just dreamed about the stars. We hope this site will help you get the most out of the night, so go ahead and join Google on the red carpet at google.com/oscars. And don’t forget to tune in on February 24 at 7pm EST / 4pm PST on ABC to see who this year’s lucky winners are.



Posted by Liz Wessel, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Fireside Hangouts: Join First Lady Michelle Obama in a Google+ Hangout to discuss Let’s Move!

In the past month, both the President and Vice President of the United States have come to Google+ to participate in "Fireside Hangouts" to discuss the challenges the country faces and answer people's questions. On March 4, it's First Lady Michelle Obama's turn as she joins her first-ever Fireside Hangout to discuss Let’s Move!, her initiative to ensure that all our children grow up healthy and reach their full potential. The First Lady will be joined by Kelly Ripa, Emmy award-winning co-host of popular daytime talk show "LIVE with Kelly and Michael," and families from around the country.



Three years ago, the First Lady launched the Let's Move! initiative to unite the country around our kids' health and create real support for families to live healthier lives. Since then communities across the United States have worked together to share, collaborate on and create ways to improve the health of our nation's children. This year, the First Lady is using Google+ to celebrate the anniversary of Let's Move! and to connect with communities on Google+ who are passionate about healthy eating, fitness and parenting.

For a chance to join the Google+ Hangout with First Lady Michelle Obama, share your thoughts and questions on raising healthier families and communities on the Let's Move YouTube channel. Submit a video or text entry (video is preferred) telling us a bit about yourself, what your family does to stay healthy and a question for the First Lady by Thursday, February 28, 2013.



Then tune in to the First Lady's Fireside Hangout live on the White House Google+ Page or Let's Move YouTube channel at 11:10 am ET on March 4.



Posted by Ria Tobaccowala, Google+ Community Partnerships

An update on our war against account hijackers

Have you ever gotten a plea to wire money to a friend stranded at an international airport? An oddly written message from someone you haven’t heard from in ages? Compared to five years ago, more scams, illegal, fraudulent or spammy messages today come from someone you know. Although spam filters have become very powerful—in Gmail, less than 1 percent of spam emails make it into an inbox—these unwanted messages are much more likely to make it through if they come from someone you’ve been in contact with before. As a result, in 2010 spammers started changing their tactics—and we saw a large increase in fraudulent mail sent from Google Accounts. In turn, our security team has developed new ways to keep you safe, and dramatically reduced the amount of these messages.



Spammers’ new trick—hijacking accounts

To improve their chances of beating a spam filter by sending you spam from your contact’s account, the spammer first has to break into that account. This means many spammers are turning into account thieves. Every day, cyber criminals break into websites to steal databases of usernames and passwords—the online “keys” to accounts. They put the databases up for sale on the black market, or use them for their own nefarious purposes. Because many people re-use the same password across different accounts, stolen passwords from one site are often valid on others.



With stolen passwords in hand, attackers attempt to break into accounts across the web and across many different services. We’ve seen a single attacker using stolen passwords to attempt to break into a million different Google accounts every single day, for weeks at a time. A different gang attempted sign-ins at a rate of more than 100 accounts per second. Other services are often more vulnerable to this type of attack, but when someone tries to log into your Google Account, our security system does more than just check that a password is correct.

Legitimate accounts blocked for sending spam: Our security systems have dramatically reduced the number of Google Accounts used to send spam over the past few years

How Google Security helps protect your account

Every time you sign in to Google, whether via your web browser once a month or an email program that checks for new mail every five minutes, our system performs a complex risk analysis to determine how likely it is that the sign-in really comes from you. In fact, there are more than 120 variables that can factor into how a decision is made.



If a sign-in is deemed suspicious or risky for some reason—maybe it’s coming from a country oceans away from your last sign-in—we ask some simple questions about your account. For example, we may ask for the phone number associated with your account, or for the answer to your security question. These questions are normally hard for a hijacker to solve, but are easy for the real owner. Using security measures like these, we've dramatically reduced the number of compromised accounts by 99.7 percent since the peak of these hijacking attempts in 2011.

Help protect your account

While we do our best to keep spammers at bay, you can help protect your account by making sure you’re using a strong, unique password for your Google Account, upgrading your account to use 2-step verification, and updating the recovery options on your account such as your secondary email address and your phone number. Following these three steps can help prevent your account from being hijacked—this means less spam for your friends and contacts, and improved security and privacy for you.



Posted by Mike Hearn, Google Security Engineer

RISE Awards 2013: A global effort

“I am standing in a partial enclosure made of sticks and plant fronds. This is the school for roughly 35 students, ranging in age from three to about 20 years old. There are no desks. There is only a single shared chalkboard, and it has gaping holes.” — David Rathmann-Bloch from the 21st Century Chalkboard Project, writing from rural Haiti.

These are just some of the many challenges faced by education organizations who applied for this year’s Google RISE Awards. The RISE (Roots in Science and Engineering) Awards program funds and supports organizations around the world that provide science and technology education at a grassroots level.

This year we’re delighted to give awards to 30 new organizations from 18 different countries. Combined they will reach more than 90,000 children in 2013, helping inspire and teach the scientists and engineers of the future.

• Some, such as Haiti’s 21st Century Chalkboard Project and the Uniristii Association (site in Romanian) in Romania, help those from underserved communities gain access to computing resources.


• Others, like the U.K.’s Code Club and the U.S.’s CodeNow, offer extracurricular activities that help interested children, especially those from underrepresented minority backgrounds, to learn programming.


• A few, such as the Middle East’s MEET and iLab Liberia, seek to use technology education as a platform to bridge wider social and cultural divides.


• Some, like Girlstart in the U.S. and New Zealand’s Programming Challenge 4 Girls, aim to empower girls to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

In addition to receiving funding and support to continue their outreach, RISE Award recipients will be brought together for a global summit this June in London.



To paraphrase an old saying, from small seeds, great things can grow. The recipients of the 2013 RISE Awards have already made a difference. Connecting with other like-minded organizations will help spread valuable and practical expertise, and spark opportunities for global collaboration and expansion.



Posted by Roxana Shirkhoda, Education Outreach Specialist

Fireside Hangouts: Join President Obama on Google+ after the State of the Union

When President Obama heads to a joint session of Congress tomorrow night, he’ll be honoring the 200-year old tradition of delivering the State of the Union to Congress and the American people. Two days later, the President will turn to Google+ to continue a more recent tradition, by taking questions online after his speech. You can tune in to the Hangout this Thursday at 4:50 p.m. ET.







Much like the Fireside Hangouts held by Vice President Biden and Domestic Policy Director Cecilia Munoz over the past few weeks, the President’s Fireside Hangout will include a group of people who regularly discuss important issues of the day online. During the conversation, the selected participants will ask the President their own questions—but we’d also like to hear from you before the Hangout. To let the President know what’s on your mind, head to the White House YouTube channel and submit a video or text question. You can submit or vote on questions you’d like to hear him address until 11:59 p.m. ET on Wednesday, February 13.



Looking for inspiration for your question? Watch the President’s State of the Union speech on YouTube tomorrow night at 9 p.m. ET, as well as the Republican response from Senator Marco Rubio directly afterwards.



Then tune in to Thursday’s Fireside Hangout on the White House Google+ page or YouTube channel for a unique online discussion between the President and the American people on Google+.



Posted by Ramya Raghavan, Google+ Politics

Solve for X: Celebrating moonshot thinking—join us and declare your X!

Last week we hosted our 2013 Solve for X event, where we gathered 50 experienced entrepreneurs, innovators and scientists from around the world, who are taking on moonshots—proposals that address a huge problem, suggest a radical solution that could work, and use some form of breakthrough technology to make it happen.



We heard 18 technology moonshot proposals, which you can watch on SolveforX.com. Make sure to catch Danielle Fong, whose creativity, courage and persistence shine through as she describes her potentially game changing idea for renewable energy storage. Take a look at Peter Diamandis and Eric Anderson describing their new asteroid mining company, Planetary Resources—exactly the kind of moonshot thinking that Solve for X was created to celebrate. Watch Flaminia Catteruccia suggest an ingenious shift in our approach to stopping the spread of Malaria, and check out Keith Black’s proposal to diagnose Alzheimer's 20 years before any symptoms appear using a test that could be included in a routine eye exam.





Solve for X: Moonshot Thinking



Supporting innovators in process, as they take risks and dream big

One of the reasons we created Solve for X was to provide a collaborative forum to celebrate and help innovators who are in the process of attempting to bring radically innovative solutions to reality—attempting moonshots. Moonshots aim to make something 10x better, not just 10 percent. We need many more of us to take on and support moonshots if we are to solve the seemingly intractable problems we face in the world. To do that, we need to better celebrate the audacity of the attempt itself—at the start and in process. Today we celebrate our greatest and most famous innovators after their success—especially those who overcame extreme hurdles and intense skepticism on their path to taking moonshots that solved huge problems. We don’t advocate for stopping this practice in any way—but we must also get better at supporting courageous innovators and their teams who take substantial risks to change the status quo as they begin and while they’re acting—without the security of knowing if the moonshot will work. (For more, read Astro’s piece on moonshot thinking today in Wired.)



SolveForX.com

Today we’re launching some updated features on SolveForX.com, a forum to encourage and amplify moonshot thinking and collaboration. We invite innovators everywhere to use SolveForX.com to promote and support one another, and we encourage everyone to join in, bring your passion and ingenuity, and think big.

SolveforX.com: A forum to encourage and amplify moonshot thinking and collaboration

• Submit moonshots: Whether it’s an early idea, something you’re already working on, a proposal you’d like to see others work on, or a moonshot idea from someone else that you’d like to promote, we’d like to hear from you—please submit those moonshot videos. Read more about what qualifies as a moonshot.
  
  


• Join and declare your X: We’ve added community areas and we hope you will join and create a profile declaring your X. Your “X” is something you are passionate about working on or solving in the world like learning access or robotics or climate change or raising happy kids. You can watch, share and rate moonshots. Search to find moonshot proposals that match your interests and join the innovation conversation.
  
  


• Check out even more moonshot ideas: Several new partners have joined Solve for X to amplify moonshot ideas, including X PRIZE, GE FOCUS FORWARD, TED, MIT Technology Review, Singularity University, and ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination. Talks from their events and programs that are aligned with the moonshot ethos (huge problem, radical solution, breakthrough technology) are now cross-linked and hosted on SolveforX.com. Some of our favorites are The Invisible Bicycle Helmet, The Music Man, Solar Roadways, Bio-Integrated Electronics, Simple Designs, Slingshot and Gulf Oil Cleanup X PRIZE Winning Team Vor-Tek. Take a moment to watch them!

Our vision for Solve for X is that it becomes a forum where technology-based moonshot thinking is practiced, celebrated and amplified by all of us. We invite you to come collaborate with us at www.SolveforX.com.



Posted by Megan Smith and Astro Teller, co-hosts/creators of Solve for X