Official Blog
Insights from Googlers into our products, technology, and the Google culture
What we learned in Seoul with AlphaGo
March 16, 2016
Go isn’t just a game—it’s a living, breathing culture of players, analysts, fans, and legends. Over the last 10 days in Seoul, South Korea, we’ve been lucky enough to witness some of that incredible excitement firsthand. We've also had the chance to see something that's never happened before:
DeepMind
's AlphaGo took on and defeated legendary Go player, Lee Sedol (9-dan professional with 18 world titles), marking a major milestone for artificial intelligence.
Pedestrians checking in on the AlphaGo vs. Lee Sedol Go match on the streets of Seoul (March 13)
Go may be one of the oldest games in existence, but the attention to our five-game tournament exceeded even our wildest imaginations. Searches for Go rules and Go boards spiked in the U.S. In China, tens of millions watched live streams of the matches, and the “Man vs. Machine Go Showdown” hashtag saw 200 million pageviews on Sina Weibo. Sales of Go boards even
surged
in Korea.
Our public test of AlphaGo, however, was about more than winning at Go. We founded DeepMind in 2010 to create general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) that can learn on its own—and, eventually, be used as a tool to help society solve some of its biggest and most pressing problems, from climate change to disease diagnosis.
Like many researchers before us, we've been developing and testing our algorithms through games. We first revealed
AlphaGo
in January—the first AI program that could beat a professional player at the most complex board game mankind has devised, using
deep learning
and
reinforcement learning
. The
ultimate challenge
was for AlphaGo to take on the best Go player of the past decade—Lee Sedol.
To everyone's surprise, including ours, AlphaGo won four of the five games. Commentators noted that AlphaGo played many unprecedented, creative, and even
“beautiful”
moves. Based on our data, AlphaGo’s bold
move 37
in Game 2 had a 1 in 10,000 chance of being played by a human. Lee countered with innovative moves of his own, such as his
move 78
against AlphaGo in Game 4—again, a 1 in 10,000 chance of being played—which ultimately resulted in a win.
The final score was 4-1. We're contributing the $1 million in prize money to organizations that support science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and Go, as well as UNICEF.
We’ve learned two important things from this experience. First, this test bodes well for AI’s potential in solving other problems. AlphaGo has the ability to look “globally” across a board—and find solutions that humans either have been trained not to play or would not consider. This has huge potential for using AlphaGo-like technology to find solutions that humans don’t necessarily see in other areas. Second, while the match has been widely billed as "man vs. machine," AlphaGo is really a human achievement. Lee Sedol and the AlphaGo team both pushed each other toward new ideas, opportunities and solutions—and in the long run that's something we all stand to benefit from.
But as they say about Go in Korean: “Don’t be arrogant when you win or you’ll lose your luck.” This is just one small, albeit significant, step along the way to making machines smart. We’ve demonstrated that our cutting edge deep reinforcement learning techniques can be used to make strong Go and
Atari
players. Deep neural networks are already used at Google for specific tasks—like
image recognition
,
speech recognition
, and
Search ranking
. However, we’re still a long way from a machine that can learn to flexibly perform the full range of intellectual tasks a human can—the hallmark of true
artificial general intelligence
.
Demis and Lee Sedol hold up the signed Go board from the Google DeepMind Challenge Match
With this tournament, we wanted to test the limits of AlphaGo. The genius of Lee Sedol did that brilliantly—and we’ll spend the next few weeks studying the games he and AlphaGo played in detail. And because the machine learning methods we’ve used in AlphaGo are general purpose, we hope to apply some of these techniques to other challenges in the future. Game on!
Posted by Demis Hassabis, CEO and Co-Founder of DeepMind
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a27p6yLqBd8/VurhIGm54SI/AAAAAAAASDo/0G9b_3wci5UBPcXbf5W64veSZCGximD5Q/s320/A26U5144.jpg
Demis Hassabis
CEO and Co-Founder
DeepMind
New ways to plan your vacation while on the go
March 8, 2016
With spring around the corner, it’s time to look forward to sunnier skies—and summer getaways. These days, mobile phones make it easier than ever for you to sneak in vacation dreaming and planning here and there—in line at the coffee shop, waiting at the doctor’s office, or on your way to meet a friend.
In fact, last year, according to our internal data for google.com, we saw a whopping 50 percent increase in travel-related questions on mobile phones. But even as that number grows, it can be hard to get all the right information in one place on a small screen. There are a dizzying number of questions to answer when planning a trip: What are the best places to visit? What time of year is good to go? What kind of prices can I expect?
Today we’re introducing something to make all this easier: Destinations on Google, which helps you discover and plan your next vacation, right from Google Search on your phone.
Here’s how it works:
Search with Google on your mobile phone for the continent, country, or state you’d like to travel to and add the word “destination” to see an easy-to-browse collection of options. Destinations integrates a deep understanding of all the places in the world with
Google Flights
and
Hotel search
, so you can see available flight and hotel prices
instantly
. So instead of jumping between a dozen links or tabs to get the information you need, you can sit back and scroll—and leave the heavy lifting to us.
To find a vacation that’s just your style, search for a destination and something you’d like to do there, like “spain surfing,” “new zealand hiking,” or “colorado skiing.” We’ll suggest spots that fit with your hobbies and interests.
Say you’re planning to take some time off in June or July, but you haven’t decided exactly when to go. The “Flexible Dates” filter lets you refine your results by month, so you can see when fares and rates are lowest within the time range you want, across multiple destinations.
Want to avoid crowds or bad weather? Select any destination and tap the “Explore” tab to see what the weather is like year-round and when your destination is most popular, based on historic visits from other travelers.
Once you've selected a destination, tap "Plan a trip" to see rates for hotels and flights. We show you highs and lows for the next six months, so you can find the right price tag for you. And as you slide left or right, the results instantly update with real-time fares and rates, pulling from the trillions of flight itineraries and hotels we price every day on
Google Flights
and
Hotel search
. You can also tap the pencil icon to customize results further with flight and hotel preferences, including number of stops, hotel class, and number of travelers.
Whether you’ve got five days or 12, don’t fret about figuring out where to go first or which spots you can’t miss. Simply search for “Spain travel,” and click the blue arrow icon to browse the most frequently traveled itineraries. The suggested itineraries are based on historic visits by other travelers to those places, so you can use the wisdom of the crowd and save time researching.
Let Destinations on Google make it smooth sailing to your next vacation. Bon voyage!
Posted by Radhika Malpani, Engineering Director, Travel
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E2Mxsu5b1m0/VuCdTuARIqI/AAAAAAAASCI/VbrDiEmKvKk/s1600/TravelDestinations.jpg
Radhika Malpani
Engineering Director
Travel
#OneDayIWill: On International Women’s Day, share your dream with the world
March 7, 2016
Over the years, Doodles have commemorated the achievements of women in
science
,
civil rights
,
journalism
,
sports
,
arts
,
technology
and beyond. It’s always an honor to pay tribute to women who have changed the course of history, sometimes in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. But for this year’s
International Women’s Day
, we wanted to celebrate the Doodle-worthy women of the future. So we gathered our cameras and pencils and visited 13 countries where we asked 337 women and girls to complete the sentence, “One day I will…” This is what they told us:
Our video Doodle was created by three women on the Doodle team (Liat Ben-Rafael, Lydia Nichols, and Helene Leroux) and features original music by Merrill Garbus (
tUnE-yArDs
).
From toddlers to grandmothers, the women in San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Lagos, Moscow, Cairo, Berlin, London, Paris, Jakarta, Bangkok, New Delhi and Tokyo all sparkled with personality. Each new city brought more “One day I will”s, more signature dance moves, more hugs, more high-fives. The aspirations we heard were as varied as the women and girls who shared them, from the very personal—swim with pigs in the Bahamas—to the very global—give a voice to those who can’t speak—and everything in between. When it was done, we found that our own “One day I will…”s had grown bigger and richer, inspired by the women we’d met.
Even women who are already accomplished aren’t done dreaming. Jane Goodall shared her hope to one day discuss the environment with the Pope, while Nobel Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai and activist Muzoon Almellehan continue to work fearlessly toward a future where every girl can go to school.
In most filming locations we worked with a female-only crew to help create a celebratory and encouraging environment. To see more from all our locations, see the 12 city videos on
g.co/iwd
.
It’s not always easy to put into words what you want to achieve. When we asked women and girls on the street to articulate their aspirations, they often had to pause and think about it for a few minutes. Whether their responses were detailed or broad strokes, concrete or abstract, funny or heartwarming, it was inspiring to see them take the time to dream.
Now it’s your turn. Share your aspiration with
#OneDayIWill
and get one step closer to where you’re going. You never know, you could be the subject of a doodle yourself someday...
Posted by Lydia Nichols and Liat Ben-Rafael, Doodle Team
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J0C1J-iD_Ww/VuCNg4b0VLI/AAAAAAAASB4/ztl_odgWUrY/s1600/IWD_B.jpg
Lydia Nichols and Liat Ben-Rafael
Doodle Team
Moon Shot
: A space story about life on Earth
March 3, 2016
Right now, 16 private teams from around the world are in a race to the moon. They’re in a $30 million competition called the
Google Lunar XPRIZE
(GLXP), which challenges teams to design and build a rover, land it on the surface of the moon, drive it 500 meters across the lunar landscape, and send HD video and imagery back to Earth by the end of 2017. And soon, you’ll be able to learn their stories in a new digital documentary series from Google, Academy Award®-nominated director Orlando von Einsiedel, Executive Producer J.J. Abrams, Bad Robot, and Epic Digital.
The GLXP competition, which started in 2007, aims to kick off a new era of space exploration by enabling low-cost and efficient access to the moon. Not only is the moon our closest neighbor in space, it’s also the gateway to exploring the rest of the universe—and provides opportunities for discovery in the fields of science, technology, and human habitation.
The teams in the competition come from all walks of life, from Silicon Valley tech experts, to hackers in Germany, to IT specialists in India, to a father and son working out of their their Vancouver apartment. In a series of 9 digital documentaries,
Moon Shot
goes behind the scenes with each team, bringing to life their challenges, sacrifices, quirks, and most importantly, the reasons why they’re making the 238,900 mile journey to the moon.
The series will be available for free on Google Play on March 15 and on YouTube on March 17. Subscribe to the
Google Lunar XPRIZE YouTube Channel
to be one of the first to see it, and for more information, visit
lunar.xprize.org
.
Posted by Yasemin Denari Southworth, Marketing Manager, Google Brand Marketing
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Yasemin Denari Southworth
Marketing Manager
Google Brand Marketing
Providing support to combat Zika in Brazil and beyond
March 3, 2016
The recent Zika virus outbreak has caused concern around the world. We’ve seen more than a
3,000 percent increase in global search interest
since November, and last month, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a
Public Health Emergency
. The possible correlation with
Zika, microcephaly and other birth defects
is particularly alarming.
But unlike many other global pandemics, the spread of Zika has been harder to identify, map and contain. It’s believed that
4 in 5 people
with the virus don’t show any symptoms, and the primary transmitter for the disease, the
Aedes
mosquito species, is both widespread and challenging to eliminate. That means that fighting Zika requires raising awareness on how people can protect themselves, as well as supporting organizations who can help drive the development of rapid diagnostics and vaccines. We also have to find better ways to visualize the threat so that public health officials and NGO’s can support communities at risk.
As a company whose mission is helping people find information, with a lot of experience in analyzing large sets of data, we’re in a good position to help—at scale and at speed. So today we have Google engineers working with UNICEF to analyze data to determine how to map and anticipate the virus. We’ve also made some updates to our products to make Zika information more accessible, and we’re providing
UNICEF
with a $1 million grant to help their efforts on the ground.
Mapping information to help with prevention
A volunteer team of Google engineers, designers, and data scientists is helping UNICEF build a platform to process data from different sources (i.e., weather and travel patterns) in order to visualize potential outbreaks. Ultimately, the goal of this open source platform is to identify the risk of Zika transmission for different regions and help UNICEF, governments and NGO’s decide how and where to focus their time and resources. This set of tools is being prototyped for the Zika response, but will also be applicable to future emergencies.
Google software engineers John Li and Zora Tung with UNICEF research scientist Manuel Garcia Herranz and UX designer Tanya Bhandari working on the open source data platform.
Supporting UNICEF’s efforts to combat Zika
Our $1 million grant will be used by UNICEF to raise widespread awareness, reduce mosquito populations, support the development of diagnostics and vaccines, and work with communities and governments to prevent Zika transmission. The organization expects to reach 200 million affected or vulnerable people in Brazil and throughout Latin America with these efforts.
© UNICEF/Ueslei Marcelino2016. A mother holds her 4-month old baby born with microcephaly in Recife, Brazil. "When I left the hospital, they already had another 7 children with the same situation," she shared with UNICEF.
We’ve also launched a matching campaign for Google employees, aimed at providing an additional $500,000 to UNICEF and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to support their work on the ground.
Making Zika virus information accessible
We already include
robust information for 900+ health conditions
directly on Search for people in the U.S. We’ve now also added extensive information about Zika globally in 16 languages, with an overview of the virus, symptom information, and Public Health Alerts from that can be updated with new information as it becomes available.
We’re also working with popular YouTube creators across Latin America, including
Sesame Street
and Brazilian physician
Drauzio Varella
, to raise awareness about Zika prevention via their channels.
We hope these efforts are helpful in fighting this new public health emergency, and we will continue to do our part to help combat this outbreak.
And if you’re curious about what that 3,000 percent search increase looks like, take a look:
Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director, Google.org
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Jacquelline Fuller
Director
Google.org
Strengthening our commitment to racial justice
February 26, 2016
I started working with Dr. Carl Mack when I took an engineering internship in my hometown of Seattle. But it wasn’t long before my internship took me in a completely different direction. The city was
on high alert
in the wake of racial discrimination and violence, and Dr. Mack was the VP of the city’s NAACP chapter. At his side, I was soon participating in protests and closed door meetings with city leaders—opening my eyes to non-technical solutions, and setting me off on a path that would eventually lead me to
Google.org
, where today I lead giving projects focused on the Bay Area and on racial justice.
More recently, incidences of racial violence have again dominated our headlines, with the killing of young men like Tamir Rice and Jordan Davis, the deaths of Michael Brown and Sandra Bland, and countless other acts of injustice. And it isn’t just heartbreaking individual stories. The data is troubling: African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites. An estimated 40 percent of all students expelled from U.S. schools are black, and 30 percent are Latino. Of course, Google and our own industry
need to do more
to promote equality and opportunities for all.
Social innovators can help us move closer to our ideals of equality and justice. That’s why last year, Google.org launched a new, dedicated effort to support leaders who are doing critical work to end mass incarceration and combat endemic educational inequality for black and brown students. We
announced $2.35 million in grants
to support leaders like #BlackLivesMatter co-founder
Patrisse Cullors
;
Chris Chatmon
, who leads Oakland's African American Male Achievement Initiative; and
Raj Jayadev
, who founded the criminal justice reform organization Silicon Valley De-Bug.
Patrisse Cullors, Co-Founder of #BlackLivesMatter, at the
Google.org screening of 3 ½ Minutes and 10 bullets
, Castro Theatre in San Francisco, Calif. on November 3, 2015.
Today, I'm excited to continue that momentum with the addition of four more organizations in this space, totalling $3 million in new grants. To help eliminate racial bias within our educational systems, we’re supporting San Francisco’s
My Brother and Sister's Keeper (MBSK) program
, Oakland’s
Roses in Concrete Community School
, and the tech-enabled college success startup,
Beyond12
. We're also supporting
Bryan Stevenson
and the national
Equal Justice Initiative
(EJI), which is focused on countering deep-seated bias against people of color in our communities and institutions. In addition to the grant, we’re committed to working with EJI to bring its public education work online so that millions more can experience it.
From left to right: David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, Alphabet; Bryan Stevenson, Founder and CEO, Equal Justice Initiative; Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade, Founder, Roses in Concrete Community School, Oakland; Landon Dickey, Special Assistant for African American Achievement & Leadership, San Francisco Unified School District; Alexandra Bernadotte, Founder and CEO, Beyond 12; Richard Carranza, Superintendent, San Francisco Unified School District; and Justin Steele, Principal, Google.org. Photo credit: 510Media.
Each of these organizations and their leaders have shown a deep, fundamental understanding of racial injustice and are actively finding ways to rid our systems of social, educational and economic exclusion. We as a company are proud to support them.
Posted by Justin Steele, Principal, Google.org
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CIDsjm4o4ZA/VtnMKzuxyPI/AAAAAAAAR9w/4_RR31deIbI/s1600/first.jpg
Justin Steele
Principal
Google.org
Protecting the world's news from digital attack
February 25, 2016
The web is an increasingly critical tool for news organizations, allowing them to communicate faster, research more easily, and disseminate their work to a global audience. Often it's the primary distribution channel for critical, investigative work that shines a light into the darkest corners of society and the economy—the kind of reporting that exposes wrongdoing, causes upset and brings about change.
Unfortunately there are some out there who want to prevent this kind of reporting—to silence journalism when it’s needed most. A simple, inexpensive distributed
denial of service (DDoS) attack
can be carried out by almost anyone with access to a computer—and take a site completely offline before its owners even know they’ve been attacked.
These attacks threaten free expression and access to information—two of Google’s core values. So a few years ago we created
Project Shield
, an effort that uses Google’s security infrastructure to detect and filter attacks on news and human rights websites. Now we’re expanding Project Shield beyond our trusted testers, and opening it up to all the world’s news sites to protect them from DDoS attacks and eliminate DDoS as a form of censorship.
We learned a lot from our early group of Project Shield testers. Not only have we kept websites online during attacks that otherwise would have taken them offline, we learned crucial information about how these types of attacks happen, and how we can improve our services to defend against them.
With this expansion, tens of thousands of news sites will have access to Project Shield. And because Project Shield is free, even the smallest independent news organizations will be able to continue their important work without the fear of being shut down.
Finally, Project Shield is not just about protecting journalism. It’s about improving the health of the Internet by mitigating against a significant threat for publishers and people who want to publish content that some might find inconvenient. A free and open Internet depends on protecting the free flow of information—starting with the news.
Visit our
website
to learn how Project Shield works and, if you work in journalism, discover how you can join the fight to protect the world’s news.
Posted by Jared Cohen, President,
Jigsaw
, and Advisor to Executive Chairman, Alphabet Inc.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1JjvWDOhzvw/VtnXIAUZHRI/AAAAAAAAR-E/32Bsc5AOAyc/s1600/Shield.jpg
Jared Cohen
President
Jigsaw
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