Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Bringing some of the best of Belgium to Street View
Thursday, January 22, 2015
hroughout the world, our Google Street View special collects allow users anywhere, on their mobile devices or computers, to see the world’s great sites. We’ve now just added some of the best of Belgium to the collection. Stroll through the Mardasson Memorial commemorating World War II’s decisive Battle of the Bulge or take a peek at the saxophone-filled homage to Albert Sax over the Meuse River in Dinant.
The images were taken with the
Street View Trekker
backpack on which is mounted a panoramic camera, and
Street View Trolley
, a cart with a camera system. Both tools make it possible photograph places inaccessible to Street View cars.
The project includes a shout out to three special Belgian towns: Wavre, Grobbendonk and Auderghem, the winners of Google eTown Awards in 2013. We award this prize to municipalities that benefit the most from the economic potential of the Internet.
In Wavre, we’ve captured images of the City Hall.
In Auderghem, we take a look inside the Val Duchesse castle.
In Grobbendonk, we feature the ruins of the OLV Ten Toon priory.
Posted by Caroline Coesmans, Policy Manager, Brussels
Promoting sportsmanship on the field - and on the net
Sunday, January 11, 2015
In football, a red card means expulsion from the game. On the Internet, what would a red card resemble? This week, we launched a contest here in Belgium with the Mons Football Club youth clubs to help find out.
Why Belgium and why Mons? One of our two largest European data centers is located just outside the city. We’ve invested hundreds of millions in it and that means we are going to be involved in the local community for a long time to come. Belgium’s football reputation has been growing recently with an excellent showing at the recent Brazil World Cup - its top players are found sprinkled on many of the world’s top team - and the Mons youth academy is known as one of the country’s best.
Launching the contest in Belgium
The idea came from our strong partnership with the local
Mundaneum
institution and a
partnership
forged last year with one of the world’s biggest football clubs - Real Madrid. It held a contest called
"First Prize for the Promotion of Internet Values.”
As in football, the Net bans violence towards others. When you play sports, you are obliged to help all who are injured or have a disability. On the Internet, too, you need to help others.
The Belgian contest will be open to 11-17 olds, the teenagers who are growing up on the net. From this month through April, the club’s teenage players will attend workshops and create projects - drawings, videos, or essays - that marry their passion for football, fair play and the Internet.
More than 120 young players from RAEC Mons attended the
contest launch
. Dressed in their team uniforms, most said they spent as much or more time surfing on the Net as on the playing field. They will now compete for prizes ranging from a Chromebook to a tablet. Winners will be announced on April 19 at the club’s final home match this season.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Community Relations, Europe
Expanding our data centres in Europe
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
The Internet is growing fast and so is demand for our services, from search to Gmail and YouTube. In order to keep up with this growth, we are announcing a new EUR600 million investment over the next four years to build a new
data centre
in Eemshaven, the Netherlands.
Groundbreaking at our new data centre site in the Eemshaven with, on the right, Dutch Economics Minister Henk Kamp
At a time of high unemployment throughout Europe, the project promises a welcome infusion of jobs. Construction will provide work for more than 1000 workers. We expect to start initial operations in the first half of 2016 and to be fully operational by the end of 2017. By then, the centre will create employment for more than 150 people in a range of full-time and contractor roles. The jobs do not require phds in computer science; they include IT technicians, electrical and mechanical engineers, catering, facilities and security staff.
The new Dutch data centre will benefit from the latest designs in cooling and electrical technology. It will be free-cooled - taking advantage of natural assets like cool air and grey water to keep our servers cool. Our data centers use 50% less energy than a typical datacenter - and our intention is to run this new facility on renewable energy.
This will be Google’s fourth hyper efficient facility in Europe. Importantly, demand for Internet services remains so strong that the new building does not mean a reduction in expansion elsewhere. Our expansion will continue in Dublin in
Ireland
, in Hamina in
Finland
, and in St. Ghislain in
Belgium
. Our existing rented datacenter facility in Eemshaven also will continue to operate.
Since our investment in our first European datacenter back in 2007, we have been on the lookout for supportive communities with the necessary resources to support large data centers. The required ingredients are land, workforce, networking, a choice of power and other utilities including renewable energy supplies.
It’s much more efficient to build a few large facilities than many small ones. Eemshaven enjoys a direct cable connection to two major European Internet hubs, London and Amsterdam. In the Eemshaven, we've found a great community in a great location that meets the needs to become a backbone for the expanding Internet.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Data Centre Community Relations, Europe
Seeking advice on the Right to be Forgotten
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Earlier this summer we announced the formation of an
Advisory Council
on the Right to be Forgotten. As the Council begins its work, it is seeking
comment
from experts on the issues raised by the CJEU ruling. Experts will be considered for selection to present to the Council in-person during public consultations held this fall, in the following cities:
September 9 in Madrid, Spain
September 10 in Rome, Italy
September 25 in Paris, France
September 30 in Warsaw, Poland
October 14 in Berlin, Germany
October 16 in London, UK
November 4 in Brussels, Belgium
The Council welcomes position papers, research, and surveys in addition to other comments. We accept submissions in any official EU language. Though the Council will review comments on a rolling basis throughout the fall, it may not be possible to invite authors who submit after August 11 to present evidence at the public consultations.
Stay tuned for details on the Council’s activity.
Posted by Betsy Masiello, Google Secretariat to the Council
Commemorating World War I
Friday, June 27, 2014
A century ago, a Serb nationalist assassinated Austrian Archduke
Franz Ferdinand
, sparking World War I. Today, we are launching a new
channel
dedicated to commemorate the war’s centenary. It brings together World War I content, paintings, photographs, letters, documents, soldiers’ poems and more, from a range of Museum partners, ranging from the German Federal Archives to the Belgian Mundaneum to the Imperial War Museum.
A search for Franz Ferdinand brings up
photos
relating to the Archeduke’s assassination. They show the Franz and his wife Sophie arriving in Sarajevo. Outfitted in regal dress, treated with the pomp and circumstance of royalty, they stroll through the streets. A final image shows police arresting Serb assassin
Gavrilo Princip
.
Other exhibits explore the art around the conflict and personal impact of the conflict. Belgium’s Mundaneum has collected postcards sent from POW camps. The Imperial War Museum’s features
Christopher Nevinson's bleak landscapes
. The British authorities censored some of the paintings for being too “negative.” At the same time, the museum also features
John Nash’s patriotic paintings
.
The German side of the war is well represented, with more than
200 new items in 13 new exhibits
. Items include photographs, newspapers, letters, army documents, ration cards, and unusual items like the anti war poem written by a German soldier which lead to his detention. Exhibits range from German policy around the Sarajevo assassination to the rise of German airships to problems of nutrition due to the conflict.
The exhibits are designed for for a wide audience and full of exciting details for specialists. More content will be added over the coming months and years as commemorations around the Great War continue.
Posted by James Davis, Google Culture Institute, Paris
Chromebooks come to five more European countries - in verse
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Chromebooks are coming to nine more nations
to improve computing for all generations.
So we’d like to say our Hellos
to our new global Chromebook fellows:
Kia ora to our New Zealand mates,
where getting on-line will have shorter waits.
Kumusta to new friends in the Philippines,
a better way of computing is what this means.
Hallo to all the folks in Norway
Speed, simplicity and security are coming your way.
Hej Hej to the people in Denmark
Built-in virus protection will be your new computing benchmark.
To Mexico and Chile, Hola we say
Tons of apps and free automatic updates are starting today.
And in the coming weeks -- very soon, you’ll see --
Chromebooks will be in Belgium, Spain and Italy.
Chromebooks are easy to share, manage and use,
With lots of
shapes, colors and sizes
to choose.
Stay safe with your data stored in the cloud,
A smart pick like Chromebook will make your mom proud.
When Chromebooks in these countries alight,
We hope our new global friends find some computing delight.
Posted by David Shapiro, Director of Chromebook Marketing and Occasional Versifier
Improving our data centre energy performance
Friday, April 4, 2014
At Google we’re obsessed with building energy efficient
data centers
. Our facilities use 50% less energy than most other data centers, and we’re pushing ourselves to become even more efficient.
As part of this effort, our main European data centres, in St. Ghislain, Belgium, Hamina, Finland, and Dublin, Ireland recently were added to our ISO 50001 certification. Much like the environmental and workforce safety management certifications, ISO 50001 ensures we have a strong energy policy, build a robust auditing program, continually monitor, assess, and respond to our energy efficiency results.
Google Data Centere in Finland
Last year, we became the first company in North America to obtain a multi-site ISO 50001 certification for that system, covering our corporate data center operations and six U.S. data centers.
Another green priority for us is energy. Over the past year, we have signed two major contracts to buy all the electricity generated by Swedish wind farms for 10 years. By entering into long-term agreements with wind farm developers over the past few years, we’ve been able to increase the amount of renewable energy we consume while helping enable the construction of new facilities. Once completed, the wind farms will provide Google’s Hamina, Finland, data center with additional renewable energy as the facility expands in coming years.
Overall, we're focused on reducing our energy use while serving the explosive growth of the Internet. Most data centers use just as much non-computing or “overhead” energy (like cooling and power conversion) as they do to power their servers. At Google we’ve reduced this overhead to only 12%. That way, most of the energy we use powers the machines directly serving Google searches and products. We will continually push toward doing more with less—serving more users while consuming less energy.
Posted by Joe Kava, Vice President, Data Centres Operations
Partnering in Belgium to create a capital of culture
Thursday, March 20, 2014
The Belgian city of
Mons
becomes a European capital of culture next year, ushering in 12 months of festivities. One of Google’s two major European
data centers
is located just down the road from the city, making us a major local investor and employer. It is only natural that we want to help put some sparkle into the city’s ambitious capital of culture plans.
At today’s press conference launch of the
Mons 2015 program
, we launched something special and sparkling - new Indoor
Street View
images. Street View cars and trikes captured new imagery of some of Mons’s most famous buildings - both their exteriors - and for the first time, their interiors. These include the splendid Grand Place, including the inside of the the
City Hall
, the
Collégiale Sainte Waudru
, and the
BAM
art museum.
Mons is an architectural treasure. The canonesses of the Sainte Waudru religious community began their first church in 1450 and the Brabant Gothic style church remains of the most beautiful buildings in Mons. Inside, the exceptional Treasure of Sainte Waudru houses a precious collection of gold and remarkable 16th-century alabaster statues from the artist and Mons resident
Jacques du Broeucq
.
View Larger Map
View Larger Map
The historic city centre is dominated by the
Grand Place
and its remarkable City Hall. Commissioned by
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy
, famed architect Matthijs de Layens designed the imposing edifice.
View Larger Map
View Larger Map
Throughout the coming year and a half, we’ll continue to support the Mons 2015 adventure, in particular by working with our longtime partners, the
Mundaneum
archive. More than a century ago, two visionary Belgians envisioned the World Wide Web’s architecture of hyperlinks and indexation of information, not on computers, but on paper cards. Their creation was called the Mundaneum.
The Mundaneum plans an exciting “Mapping Knowledge” exhibition. Together, we are bringing high-level speakers to the city to explore Internet issues. Our own chief Internet evangelist and “father of the Internet”
Vint Cerf
recently visited and presented his vision of the future to a packed audience at the city’s 600 seat Manege Theater. Mons’ time on the big stage of European culture promises many more exciting events.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Community Relations, Europe
Honoring Irish casualties from World War I
Friday, January 10, 2014
During World War I, about 50,000 Irish soldiers died fighting in the British army. Until now, these records were located only in a book released in 1923 and published in a mere 100 copies. Google has worked with the Irish genealogical history and heritage company
Eneclann
and the
In Flanders Fields Museum
in Ypres, Belgium to build a
new Irish memorial website
, bringing a list of Irish war dead available online and making it searchable with
this simple tool
.
Today, Ireland’s Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade
Eamon Gilmore T.D.
, launched the new website with Northern Ireland First Minister
Peter Robinson
and deputy First Minister
Martin McGuinness
at our Dublin headquarters. “While the digitisation and online access to this record will be a rich resource for genealogy, most significant is its value in facilitating the simple and important act of remembering the individuals, Irish men and women, who lost their lives in the First World War,” Tánaiste Gilmore said.
The two Northern Irish leaders spoke movingly about the project. “My presence is a clear indication of the maturity in confronting history on this island. For many years, this as something that people were not prepared to talk about, to face up to, to acknowledge,” said deputy First Minister McGuinness. First Minister Peter Robinson agreed, saying: “As we enter an important decade of commemorations in both our countries, it is my hope that what has been established here today will keep alive the history and the stories of those who did not return from war.”
Deputy First Minister McGuiness
Work on the archive dates back to July 2012 when the Irish ambassador to Belgium, Éamonn Mac Aodha approached Google and In Flanders Fields Museum. During the research, the museum discovered that the records for Irish casualties of the First World War were neither fully correct nor complete. More records simply list France as place of death. Many probably instead died in Flanders - in all some 11,060 out of the 49,000 have now been identified as being killed or commemorated or buried in Belgium.
More than 100 guests attended today’s launch. These included family members who had researched relatives who died in World War One; members of the diplomatic corps; political representatives and historians and academics, and members of commemorative organisations. Our idea is to engage the public and increase knowledge about these casualties. If you find an ancestor or locate a long-lost relative in the list send, documents, pictures, letters or any other relevant information, email namenlijst@ieper.be. The information will be verified and added to the website.
The new Irish World War I records search tool
This event marks the opening of the ceremonies for the 100th year of the outbreak of World War I. We’re proud to play a part in this project as a sign of our commitment to Ireland, our European headquarters, and to using technology to fill in holes left by history.
Posted by William Echikson, External Relations, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Joining Belgium and Finland around data centres
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
At first glance, it’s hard to think of two cultures more different than Belgium’s southern French speaking
Wallonia
and Finland’s southeastern lake region. Finland is rural, Nordic, and Lutheran, a place of big spaces, big forests, and big lakes. Belgium is urban, Latin and Roman Catholic, a place of crowded industrial landscapes, carefully cultivated fields and man-made canals.
Sunset at our data centre in Belgium
And yet, both are homes to
Google data centres
, and when our Finnish partners recently visited Belgium for two days of workshops, they found many things in common. Both regions built their economies on big traditional industries that are fast disappearing - paper and pulp in Finland, coal and steel in Belgium. Both have big neighbors - Russia and France. And both have a willpower to work with us to help jump, as our partners put it, “from the Industrial Heartland to the Internet age.”
It was a fruitful two day visit. The dozen-person Finnish team, lead by the regional development agency
Cursor
and
Aalto University
, told about their success in spawning video games startups and boosting online local tourism. The Belgian team, led by the local
Mundaneum Museum
spoke about plans to use the net for its upcoming 2015 celebration of the regional capital and hometown Mons as a European capital of culture.
We also compared common challenges - improving the two regions’ level of English and other skills needed to attract international business. Both regions aim to create web incubators and web startups, projects we are aim to support.
Over the past year, we have disbursed more than EUR1 million of grants to local organizations around the data centers. These fund a wide range of activities, from a Popmaton at
Mons’ Andy Warhol exhibit
to measuring water health in southeastern Finland’s rivers to supporting a computer science contest at the
University of Mons,
including exhibitions and talks on Internet issues and opportunities in both countries. It was gratifying to see our partners getting to know each other personally and pledging to work together to common goals. We have dug deep roots in these two different but similar regions and plan to continue planting deep roots in computer science, environment and empowering cultural institution.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Community Relations, Brussels
An unusual meeting of minds in Belgium
Monday, October 28, 2013
It will be a special moment when one of the “fathers’ of the Internet meets some of the “grandfathers." This evening,
Vint Cerf
, who helped pioneer the Internet’s original protocol in the 1980s, will travel to Mons in Belgium for a event celebrating the
Mundaneum
. Click below to enjoy live streaming of the event from the Manege Theater.
More than a century ago, two visionary Belgians envisioned the World Wide Web’s architecture of hyperlinks and indexation of information, not on computers, but on paper cards. Their creation was called the
Mundaneum
. Two years ago, Google struck a partnership with the Mundaneum to support the archive’s exhibitions, conferences, and other activities. Since then, the relationship has bloomed. A Google data centre is located near Mons and the Mundaneum has become a key partner in working with us to dig deep roots in the region.
As demand for our products grows, we’re investing hundreds of millions of Euros in expanding our European data centres. According to the the Wallonia Agency for Foreign Investment, our EUR550 million investment makes us one of Belgium’s largest investors. A data center is about more than just bricks, mortar and servers, too. Its about jobs. All of our open positions can be found on
Google Jobs page
for positions in Belgium.
In Mons, Vint will meet local web entrepreneurs in town, at the local
Beaux-Arts Mons museum
, which is featuring an
Andy Warhol exhibition
. Google is supporting the exhibition’s online activities.
On Tuedsay Vint will travel to Ghent for a repeat performance at the
Minard Theater
. We also have deep roots in Ghent. The Ghent University’s library owns a linguistic treasure trove of centuries-old books in English, French, German and Dutch. As a
Google book partner
, we have scanned more than 200,000 of the library’s out of copyright works. Works that once were relegated to hard-to-reach library shelves and received only an occasional reader now get more than than 100,000 views each day on the Net. That’s quite an achievement for a father of the Internet to celebrate.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Data Centre Community Relations, Europe.
Get an All Access music pass on Google Play
Thursday, August 8, 2013
With millions upon millions of songs out there, it can be a daunting task to figure out what to choose. Sometimes you just want to sit back, press play and hear something new. Starting today, you can do just that.
All Access
, our new monthly music subscription service in Google Play, is now available in Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and the UK.
All Access provides an unlimited pass to a huge library of music on all your devices — from all the major record companies, as well as top local and independent labels.
The new service lets you create an ad-free, interactive radio station from any song or artist. You can add, remove or re-order your station and see what’s coming next. Or browse recommendations from our expert music team and explore songs by genre. The “Listen Now” tab puts artists and radio stations we think you’ll like front and center allowing you to start listening the minute you open your library.
When millions of songs just aren’t enough, Google Play Music lets you combine our collection with your own collection. You can store 20,000 songs for free online, and listen to them alongside the All Access catalogue on any Android device, or via the web at
play.google.com
. You can even ‘pin’ specific albums and playlists songs so they’re available offline.
Try it today for free for the first month and -- as a special introductory offer -- pay only EUR7.99 each month after that. Regular pricing for those who sign up after September 15 will be EUR9.99 a month, with a 30-day free trial.
With today’s launch, Google Play moves one step closer to your ultimate digital entertainment destination, where you can find, enjoy and share your favourite apps, games, books, movies, magazines, TV shows and music on your Android phone or tablet. Go ahead and start discovering a whole new world of music.
Posted by Paul Joyce, product manager for Google Play Music
Creating jobs in Europe’s industrial heartland
Friday, June 7, 2013
It was a standing room only crowd. More than 400 Belgians, including
Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo
, small business owners, teachers and students, recently jammed into the Mundaneum museum’s headquarters in Mons near our St. Ghislain data center. They had come to hear a full day series of Google-supported lectures and presentations at the region’s first ever
Web Jobs Fair
.
As demand for our products grows, we’re investing hundreds of millions of Euros in expanding our data centres Europe. Many of our data centres are located in traditional industrial areas where one might not immediately think of being the home for a Google facility. Our St. Ghislain facility in southern Belgium sits in the heart of a traditional coal mining region. In Finland, the region around our Hamina data centre was a military capital for the country and the heart of the now struggling paper industry.
In St. Ghislain, we announced a EUR300 million additional investment this spring, and we get excited about expansions because our investment in a data center is about more than just bricks, mortar and servers. At the peak of construction, for example, the expansion will provide employment for around 350 engineering and construction workers. In Hamina, we’re investing an additional EUR150 million, providing work for (at peak) approximately 500 engineering and construction workers.
Further, the data center provides full time jobs for people who come from diverse backgrounds and skills. Already, more than 180 work at our data center in St. Ghislain, both direct Google employees and full-time contractors, and 125 at our Hamina facility. And the jobs at our data centers are not just for computer scientists. While some positions require backgrounds in hardware operations, many are for electricians, plumbers as well some some non-technical administrative roles.
With this new expansion we are back in hiring mode for all of these types of jobs. While we are fortunate to get applications from around the globe for these positions, we love to hire locally and many of our current data center employees are from the immediate region. Since we work in English, we require all candidates to be to carry out tasks in English, but if you have a passion for working in a fast moving environment with people who are dedicated to making a large operation hum and have skills in any of these areas, we’d love to hear from you. All of our open positions can be found on
Google Jobs page
here
for positions in Finland and
here
for positions in Belgium.
Data centers are critical to our ability to provide all of our services. We are so delighted to have found wonderful homes in
Hamina
and
St. Ghislain
, and many more exciting years ahead. For more info on these two data centers please visit our site for and google.com/
Posted by William Echikson, External Relations, Brussels
Expanding Google Business Photos in Europe
Friday, May 31, 2013
Want to show off appealing images of your business? We've just expanded Google Maps
Business Photos program
to six new European countries including:
Belgium
,
Czech Republic
,
Germany
,
Poland
,
Russia
, and
Switzerland
.
The Business Photos program enables merchants to create 360-degree, interactive tours of their establishments. This imagery allows potential customers to look inside and explore businesses before they go.
Bohema restaurant in Szczecin, Poland
Are you a business owner?
If you are a business owner in any of these locations, joining the program is easy.
Simply hire a Trusted Photographer or Agency
to take pictures. Using Street View technology, the photographer will create panoramic images from the photo shoot and upload them. These images will be available automatically to anyone who searches for your business on Google.com, Google Maps, Google Maps for Mobile and on your Google+ page or Places for Business listing. If a local photographer isn’t yet available in your neighborhood,
let us know
and we’ll do our best to find a photographer for you.
Fat Cow Restaurant in Singapore
Photographers can sign up...
Whether you’re a professional photographer or photography agency we’d love to have you on board! We are recruiting more Trusted Photographers and Agencies. Please visit our website for
Trusted Photographers
and
Trusted Agencies
to learn more and sign up.
Posted by Deborah Schenker, Program Manager, Google Business Photos
Sparking an Internet revolution in Finland’s traditional heartland
Monday, April 29, 2013
Several of Google’s data centres are located in traditional industrial centres, regions that typically have a good combination of industrial infrastructure, developable land and available workforce. In Belgium, our facility in
St. Ghislain
sprouted amid closed or shuttered coal mines. In Finland, we purchased the Summa Paper Mill in
Hamina
in March 2009, from Finnish paper company Stora Enso.
We’re keen to help these regions make the transition from old to new industries, and that’s why today in Finland we’re announcing a new partnership with
Aalto University
and the regional development agency
Cursor
.
The new partnership deepens an already strong Google presence in Eastern Finland. We’ve already converted the 60 year old paper mill into a
data centre
, investing an initial EUR200 million. More than 2,000 individuals working for 50 companies (mostly Finnish and from the local area) contributed to the project. In August 2012, we announced an additional EUR150 million investment to expand the facility which includes the restoration and conversion of an
Alvar Aalto
-designed machine hall. At peak, we expect the conversion to provide work for approximately 500 engineers and construction workers.
With Google's financial support, Aalto University now will help bolster promising local acceleration programs in southeastern Finland, as well as supporting programs to improve the use of the Internet by local SMEs. The university is one of Finland’s most prestigious educational institutions, and has focused strongly on the creation and expansion of business through technological innovation. It has founded several iconic new concepts like the
Aalto Design Factory
, the
Startup Sauna
and the
Aalto Ventures
.
The Economist
recently praised Aalto for its role in spreading "the word that Finland’s future lay with new companies, not old giants.”
Over the next 12 months, southeastern Finland's regional development agency Cursor will work together with Aalto University to bring entrepreneurship programs such as Startup Sauna to southeastern Finland, encouraging entrepreneurship and supporting the creation of new companies. Cursor will also strengthen the
Venture Gym
acceleration program around the growing
Playa Game Industry Hub
, as well as the region's
Kaakko 135 travel
and tourism initiative. Aalto will provide high level speakers at events, mentors and coaches for acceleration programmes, and moderate networking events to strengthen industry ties.
This represents our second large data centre community relations program launched in Europe. In February, we announced a partnership with the
Mundaneum
archives near our Belgian data center. We have been holding a series of presentations and exhibitions about Google Data Centres and hosted a jobs day, explaining what skills are needed to work at a data center. We will use these learnings to offer similar events in Finland. In both Belgium and Finland, our goal is the same: to show the way from our industrial past to our digital future.
Posted by William Echikson, External Relations
Music to your ears! Five more countries get Google Play Music
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Today music lovers in Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg and Portugal can join their European neighbours in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy, and buy their favourite songs and albums on
Google Play
, our digital entertainment destination for Android devices and the web.
Music first launched on Google Play in Europe in November 2012, and the fast rollout to more countries today is due to the multi-territorial licensing process, as
recommended by the European Commission
last year. We have 14 multi-territorial licenses for composition rights covering Europe and representing the vast majority of the world’s music, and have recently welcomed the members of AKM/AUME in Austria, SABAM in Belgium, SPA in Portugal, and IMRO in Ireland into our growing list of author’s society partners.
Google Play makes it easy for you to buy your favourite songs and albums, and instantly add them to your music library. You can add up to 20,000 songs from your existing music collection to Google Play instantly, and listen to your music from any computer or Android phone or tablet, even when you’re offline.
To coincide with Google Play Music’s launch in these five new countries, we’re also launching artist hub – a platform for independent artists to sell their music directly to fans. In the artist hub, self-published artists can create a profile, upload their music files, suggest a retail price, and sell their music on Google Play.
According to a Nielsen/Billboard’s recent
Music Industry Report
, overall music purchases are at a record high, driven by digital sales. Sales of digital albums were up 14 per cent in 2012, while sales of digital tracks grew by five per cent last year, meaning overall music sales were up more than three per cent compared to 2011.
As people’s love affair with great music continues, so too will our commitment to bringing Google Play to more countries around the world.
Posted by Sami Valkonen, head of international music partnerships, Google Play
A flower of computer history blooms in Belgium
Thursday, February 21, 2013
It’s nice to watch a seed bloom into a radiant flower. Last spring, we announced a partnership with the Belgian institution called
Mundaneum
. Our initial ambitions were modest - to support lectures and exhibitions on the history of the Internet. The lectures and exhibitions proved so popular - one, at our other partner, the University of Ghent,
attracted 900 people
- that today we are delighted to announce a major expansion of our joint work.
The Mundaneum is becoming Belgium’s first partner with
Google’s Cultural Institute
. Our Paris-based Cultural Insitute has embarked on an adventure to revolutionize the way archives are curated and presented. It allows partners to wipe the dust off their documents, images and videos and tell the story that brings them to life in exciting new online exhibitions. Previous partners range from the
Imperial War Museum
to the
Nelson Mandela foundation
.
The Mundaneum team has curated two new online exhibitions consisting of documents, photos and videos using the Cultural Institute’s innovative digital curation tool.
One
tells the story of Mundaneum founders Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine’s quest to organise the world’s information on paper cards in the pre-digital age. The
second
celebrates the centenary of La Fontaine’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize. Both exhibition home pages are pictured below. They are available in English and French, and will soon be published in Dutch.
The Mundaneum’s home region is also home to a
Google data centers
, located in the southern Belgian village of
St. Ghislain
. In many ways, the modern data center has replaced paper cards; it provides the electric and electronic backbone for the modern Internet. This coincidence presents us with a fortuitous opportunity for community relations. In coming weeks, the Mundaneum will launch of series of presentations and exhibitions about Google Data Centers. And since we are hiring at the data center, the Mundaneum will host a jobs day, explaining what skills are needed to work at a data center. Take a look at some images from our St. Ghislain data center.
In 2015, Mons has been named a European capital of culture. We will work with Mundaneum to support this exciting project. Google technologies will be deployed to promote Mons’s historic architectural legacy - as well as its exciting modern cultural initiatives.
At the same time, we hope to spread recognition of the Mundaneum’s exciting adventure outside of Belgium. All too often, Europeans tend to think of the invention of the modern Internet as an American monopoly. In fact, Europeans played a key role. Otlet and LaFontaine created its intellectual roots; Brit
Alan Turing
of cryptology fame imagined much of its early hardware, while a Belgian, Robert Caillau, and another Brit, Tim Berners-Lee, built the World Wide Web.
Perhaps we shouldn’t have been so surprised by the success of our partnership. A natural affinity exists between Google’s modern project of making the world’s information accessble and the Mundaneum project of two early 20th century Belgians. Otlet and La Fontaine imagined organizing all the world’s information - on paper cards. While their dream was discarded, the Internet brought it back to reality and it's little wonder that many now describe the Mundaneum as “the paper Google.” Together, we are showing the way to marry our paper past with our digital future.
Posted by William Echikson, External Relations
Partnering with Belgian news publishers
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Six years ago, Belgium’s French-language news publishers and authors sued Google. They argued that we violated their copyright by displaying snippets in Google News and linking to cached copies of their pages in Google search. Today, we’re delighted to turn the page.
From left to right: Thierry Geerts, Managing Director, Google Belgium; Frans Wauter, representative of the authors' associations; Francois leHodey, representative of the Belgian French language news publishers at the Google office in Brussels.
We have reached an agreement that ends all litigation and represents great news for both us and the newspapers. We continue to believe that our services respect newspaper copyrights and it is important to note that we are not paying the Belgian publishers or authors to include their content in our services. From now on, Google and Belgian French-language publishers will partner on a broad range of business initiatives, in order to:
Promote both the publishers’ and Google’s services
- Google will advertise its services on the publishers’ media, while the publishers will optimise their use of Google’s advertising solutions, in particular
AdWords
to attract new readers.
Increase publishers’ revenue
- by collaborating on making money with content, both via premium models (paywalls, subscriptions), and via advertising solutions such as the
AdSense
platform and the
AdExchange
marketplace;
Increase reader engagement
- by implementing
Google+
social tools, including video
Hangouts
, on news sites, and launching official YouTube channels;
Increase the accessibility of the publishers’ content
- by collaborating on the distribution of the publishers original content on mobile platforms, in particular smartphones and tablets;
This agreement comes at an important moment, in the midst of a debate how best the newspaper industry should adapt to the new digital age. As the Economist recently reported under the enticing headline,
Letting the Baby Dance
, many governments including Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia, UK and Canada are considering or have gone ahead with Internet-friendly copyright reforms. At the same time, some European countries including Germany and France are considering an extension of
copyright protection
to excerpts of newspaper articles appearing in search engines’ results. The European Journalism Centre recently outlined why both Google and newspapers would be best off cooperating and
The Reach Group
published independent research reaching a similar conclusion.
We agree. Many win-win ways exist for Google and publishers to join forces in the new digital universe. We drive traffic to publishers - four billion clicks a month around the globe, offering publishers 100,000 business opportunities per minute. Our AdSense program pays out $7 billion a year to web publishers worldwide. Publishers remain free, with the addition of just a few lines of code, to pull out of Google web search and Google News. Publishers also remain free to determine whether to put their articles discovered through Google search behind a paywall.
Instead of continuing to argue over legal interpretations, we have agreed on the need to set aside past grievances in favour of collaboration. This is the same message we would like to send to other publishers around the world - its much more beneficial for us to work together than to fight.
Posted by Thierry Geerts, Managing Director, Google Belgium
Indoor Google Maps launches in Belgium
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
We’ve all been there: your online map has delivered you safely to your destination but once you enter the building itself, you get lost in an unfamiliar world. Whether you’re trying to find an exhibit within the tangled passages of a museum, looking for your gate at the airport, or seeking a place to grab a coffee before your train leaves the station, you often have to rely on a freestanding map with a ‘You Are Here’ sign, or a friendly employee to guide you.
But at Google we’re trying to fix this. Starting today, Google Maps users in Belgium can enjoy a fast and convenient way to navigate indoors in places such as retail stores, museums, galleries and train stations as we introduce accurate floor plans of many locations.
We’ve initially got indoor maps for over 60 locations such as
BOZAR
,
The Centre for Fine Arts
, the
National Basilica of the Sacred Heart
and the Universities of
Louvain-la-Neuve
,
Ghent
and
Brussels
and also included are a number of churches and university campuses (see here for a selected
list
).
For Android users who have updated to the latest version of Google Maps, detailed floor plans will automatically appear when you’re viewing the map and zoomed in on a building where indoor maps are available. In many locations the familiar blue dot indicates your location within several meters, and when you move up or down a level in a building with multiple floors, the interface will automatically update to display which floor you’re on.
This launch is part of our focus on our European users - our indoor maps are available in many locations across the
UK,
France,
Switzerland,
Denmark
and
Sweden
and we’re continuing to expand our coverage quickly.
Posted by Cedric Dupont, Product Manager, Google Maps
Celebrating the origins of the web
Monday, October 15, 2012
It’s a project close to our hearts. This week, the
Mundaneum
in the Belgian city of Mons opened a
new exhibition
on the history of collecting and organising information. We were delighted to lend our support as part of our ongoing partnership.
Decades before the creation of the World Wide Web,
Paul Otlet
and
Henri La Fontaine
envisaged a paper archival system of the world’s information. They built a giant international documentation centre -- the Mundaneum. For us at Google, this mission sounds familiar.
Entitled “Renaissance 2.0,” A Journey Through the Origins of the Web,” the new exhibition combines video, images, and text to take us on a journey through the origins of the web. It explains the role of Otlet and Lafontaine as well as World Wide Web creator Tim Berners Lee, and, of course, the role of Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
This past week, we appeared at a press conference organized by the Mundaneum to celebrate the new exhibition. In the evening, Belgian Prime Minister Elio di Rupo attended an opening cocktail and we celebrated. At the party, everyone took a step back in time, with hostesses dressed in the same 19th century uniforms they used to assemble the original Mundaneum. The exhibition runs for the coming nine months and we hope many of you can make the trip to see it.
Post content
Posted by William Echikson, External Relations
Labels
Academics
18
Advertising
10
Africa
26
Austria
7
Belgium
25
Big Tent
11
Bosnia and Herzegovina
2
Browsers
1
Brussels Tech Talk
7
Bulgaria
5
Campus
2
Child Safety
24
Cloud computing
17
Competition
16
Computer Science
35
Computing Heritage
37
Consumers
11
controversial content
2
COP21
1
copyright
34
Crisis Response
2
Culture
116
Czech Republic
16
Data Centre
15
Denmark
4
Digital News Initiative
6
Digital Single Market
1
Diversity
7
Economic Impact of the Internet
57
Economy
24
Elections
7
Energy + Environment
16
Engineering
6
Environment
5
Estonia
6
European Commission
21
European Parliament
14
European Union
104
exhibitions
1
Finland
13
France
77
Free Expression
88
Free flow of information
47
German
1
Germany
65
Google for Entrepreneurs
9
Google in Europe Blog
846
Google Play
1
Google TechTalk
2
Google Translate
1
Google Trends
3
Google+
4
Greece
16
Growth Engine
3
Hackathon
3
Hungary
16
Innovation
70
Internet Governance
7
IP
10
Ireland
16
Israel
17
Italy
42
Journalism
34
Latvia
1
Lithuania
1
Luxembourg
3
Maps
17
Middle East
18
Netherlands
6
News
2
News Lab
1
North Africa
6
Norway
3
online
1
Online Safety
2
Open data
8
Open Government
7
Open source
2
Poland
24
Portugal
6
Power of Data
25
privacy
49
Publishing
30
Right to be Forgotten
9
Rio+20
1
Romania
3
Russia
18
Safer Internet Day
4
San Marino
1
Science
5
Security
7
Single Market
7
Slovakia
16
Slovenia
2
SMEs
24
Spain
39
Startups
6
State of the Union
2
STEM Education
36
Street View
38
Surveillance
1
Sweden
13
Switzerland
11
Telecoms
11
The Netherlands
4
Tourism
1
Transparency
12
Tunisia
4
Turkey
3
Ukraine
3
United Kingdom
94
Vatican
2
Youth
2
YouTube
42
Archive
2016
Sep
Introducing YouTube Creators for Change
Announcing a Google.org grant for XperiBIRD.be, a ...
Bringing education to refugees in Lebanon with the...
Juncker embraces creators -- and their concerns
Tour 10 Downing Street with Google Arts and Culture
European copyright: there's a better way
Digital News Initiative: Introducing the YouTube P...
#AskJuncker: YouTube creators to interview the Eur...
An extinct world brought back to life with Google ...
Project Muze: Fashion inspired by you, designed by...
Come Play with us
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2012
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Feed
Give us feedback in our
Product Forums
.