Earlier today we announced on the Google Germany Blog that Yello Strom is our first Google PowerMeter partner in Europe. With over 1.4 million customers, Yello is among Germany's ten largest electricity companies and the very first company to offer commercial smart meters nationwide in Germany.
When Yello Executive Director Martin Vesper gave us a demo of the Sparzähler meter a few months ago, it felt like fate -- Yello's solution for making energy information easy-to-access and easy-to-act-upon aligns perfectly with our vision for Google PowerMeter. The Sparzähler meter's broadband connectivity makes it possible for Google PowerMeter users to see 15 minute interval data nearly in real time. (Its design is also pretty sleek, we think.)
Google PowerMeter now has nine utility partners around the world, large and small -- and each partner shares our goal of giving customers easy access to their own home energy usage information.
We hear from utilities around the world that are interested in enabling their customers to use Google PowerMeter. At the moment, we're focused on working with those utilities that can collect a minimum of hourly data (that's 24 reads a day) and deliver it to Google within one day. If you work for a utility with these kind of capabilities and are interested in getting your customers Google PowerMeter, please let us know!
Posted by Tom Sly, New Business Development
German utility partners with Google PowerMeter - willkommen!
Tuesday 6/30/2009 02:28:00 AM
Google SMS to serve needs of poor in Uganda
Monday 6/29/2009 06:00:00 AM
(Cross-posted from Official Google Africa Blog)
Today is a big day for the Google Africa team for several reasons. We're announcing an exciting partnership between MTN Uganda, the Grameen Foundation and Google, along with the launch of Google SMS in Uganda. This launch makes available the first suite of applications resulting from an endeavor initiated by Grameen Foundation called "AppLab" (Application Laboratory) which began over a year ago. AppLab is designed to develop mobile applications that serve the needs of poor and other vulnerable individuals and communities, most of whom have limited access to information and communications technology.
At Google we seek to serve a broad base of people — not only those who can afford to access the Internet from the convenience of their workplace or with a computer at home. It's important to reach users wherever they are, with the information they need, in areas with the greatest information poverty. Hence the launch of Google SMS, a bundle of mobile services for users to access content on a range of topics. This not only includes traditional services such as sports scores and local news, but for the first time, also includes services such as health and agriculture tips.
We are also releasing Google Trader, an SMS-based "marketplace" application that helps buyers and sellers find each other, enabling greater access to markets and trade, especially for those who are most excluded today. With these services, we hope to help alleviate some of the information and access to markets barriers for the poor, especially those in rural areas. So when farmers in Iganga want to sell their maize, they can list it on Google Trader and a miller in another trading center can find and contact them to buy their goods (see picture below). If a pregnant woman has a question about prenatal services, she can text her question to 6001 and get a response right away. Now people in any part of Uganda can easily find the information that is most critical to them.
Miller in trading center calling women's farming group in Iganga to obtain maize.These activities also represent an important milestone: our first major initiative in Uganda, one of the newest locations where Google is setting up operations. Earlier this year, I joined the Google Africa team to lead our efforts in Uganda, where we want to offer valuable services that address real needs. As East African fiber optic cables begin to connect Uganda to the global Internet community, it is vital that the foundation for a thriving Internet economy also be established. Many impressive organizations are focused on this goal, and we hope to enhance these efforts.
Finally, this launch represents the team efforts of many local partners, communities and individuals, each of whom played a role in bringing this vision to life. The Village Phone Operators represent our very first set of focus group participants and product development advisors. And the participation of farmers in more distant villages was fundamental in creating the highly local content — created by them, for them, through our local partner BROSDI (Busoga Rural Open Source and Development Initiative), in collaboration with AppLab. While developing the health tips service, students, health workers, doctors and school nurses stepped forward as leaders in their respective areas and turned this humble mission into a reality. Our partners, Straight Talk Foundation and Marie Stopes International, not only created the content with AppLab based on the input of these many constituents, but forged deep and strong links with the communities where these services are in greatest demand.
When we return to these villages with a product that will be developed through their insights, we want to understand if the service truly is having an impact. To this end, we are conducting a social impact assessment with Innovations for Poverty Action, with support from Google.org, to build from the knowledge of what users need most, to understand what works best.
We hope these services will help a variety of organizations already doing impressive work to reach a broader audience and those with the greatest need, in new and innovative ways, through the mobile phone. This is the first of many exciting collaborative efforts we will be working on to support access to information in Uganda and more broadly, across Africa. So to everyone who participated in this effort, we say Webale Nyo!
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All for Good: Bringing search, scale and openness to community service
6/22/2009 08:19:00 AM
(cross-posted with Official Google Blog)
While many organizations are doing great work to enable community service locally, it's not simple to search across opportunities from a variety of places to find what's right for you. We have some experience finding relevant information from among many scattered sources, and when we learned that President Obama and the First Lady were making community service a top priority even before taking office, we thought we could help make a difference.
With our mission in mind, a group of "20%" engineers, designers, and program managers from Google and other tech companies began work on All for Good, a new service to help you find volunteer events in your community, and share those events with your friends.
All for Good provides a single search interface for volunteer activities across many major volunteering sites and organizations like United Way, VolunteerMatch, HandsOn Network and Reach Out and Read. By building on top of the amazing efforts of existing volunteer organizations like these, we hope to amplify their efforts.
And in the spirit of open data, All for Good has a data API that anyone can use to search the same data displayed on the All for Good site. All for Good was developed entirely using App Engine and Google Base, with the full code repository hosted on Google Code Hosting. We'll be inviting developers to contribute to the open source application soon, so stay tuned.
Just as releasing the Maps API led to an surge of independent and creative uses of geographic information, we've built All for Good as a platform to encourage innovation in volunteerism, as much as an end product in itself. We hope software developers will use the API or code to build their own volunteering applications, some even better than the All for Good site!
And if you want to volunteer your video-creating skills to make a difference, check out YouTube Video Volunteers, a new platform designed to make connections between non-profits with video needs and skilled video makers who can help broadcast their causes through video.
All for Good is a new kind of collaboration between the private, public, and nonprofits sectors to build free and open technology to empower citizens. Similar to the Open Social Foundation, we helped create a new organization called Our Good Works to make sure that the API, the platform, and social innovation that they inspire are supported for the long term. The leadership includes Reid Hoffman, Chris DiBona, Arianna Huffington and Craig Newmark on the board, and the organization aims to build support volunteerism services like All for Good.
Today the First Lady is in San Francisco calling on Americans to improve our communities by rolling up our sleeves and putting our time and talent towards doing good. You can learn more at serve.gov, where we're proud to power search.
Happy World Environment Day
Friday 6/05/2009 11:24:00 AM
Today is World Environment Day and I wanted to point your attention to a major initiative that just launched and is supported by Google: The Prince of Wales' Prince's Rainforest Project, dedicated to protecting the Amazon rainforest. Check out this video featuring supporters from around the world, including Google's very own CEO, Eric Schmidt - and some adorable frogs. Prince Charles spoke about the destruction of the rainforest and other challenges of the 21st century at our recent European Zeitgeist. As he has said, "If we lose the battle against tropical deforestation, we lose the battle against climate change."
Google Flu Trends for Australia and New Zealand
Wednesday 6/03/2009 07:01:00 AM
As the flu season begins in the southern hemisphere, we're excited to announce the expansion of Google Flu Trends to Australia and New Zealand.
By using aggregated search data, we've been able to produce estimates of flu activity for these countries in the same manner as in the United States and Mexico. We continue to see a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms.
While some existing flu tracking systems may take days or weeks to collect and release data, Google search queries can be counted immediately. Google Flu Trends is updated daily and may provide early detection of flu outbreaks. We hope that this information complements existing flu surveillance efforts in Australia and New Zealand, and proves useful for individuals and public health responders.
We're keenly aware of the trust our users place in us and our responsibility to protect their privacy. Google Flu Trends cannot be used to identify individual users. The patterns we observe are only meaningful across large populations of Google searchers.
For those Kiwis and Aussies out there, avoid becoming part of our statistics and get a flu shot! And keep an eye on those graphs if you're curious to see how the flu season unfolds.
Energized about our first Google PowerMeter partners
5/20/2009 12:01:00 AM
- San Diego Gas & Electric® (California)
- TXU Energy (Texas)
- JEA (Florida)
- Reliance Energy (India)
- Wisconsin Public Service Corporation (Wisconsin)
- White River Valley Electric Cooperative (Missouri)
- Toronto Hydro–Electric System Limited (Canada)
- Glasgow EPB (Kentucky)
In addition to utilities, we're also seeking partnerships with companies that can enable the implementation of our software. Our first such partner is Itron, a leading meter and data management company that serves over 8,000 utilities and is helping some of their customers, including San Diego Gas & Electric, integrate with Google PowerMeter. If you're a utility or company with a smart meter project that might be interested in plugging in to our efforts, visit our website for more information.
Understanding health-related searches
5/13/2009 03:00:00 PM
(Cross-posted from Official Google Blog)
As we blogged last summer, there are lots of experiments running on Google web search all over the world. Today we've started a temporary experiment that some people might find interesting: we're researching how Google users search the Internet when they or someone they know is feeling sick.
Understanding how people search when they're feeling sick is an important problem to solve, as it can help improve projects like Google Flu Trends, which uses aggregated search data to detect influenza epidemics. Statistics gathered in this experiment may also help Google deliver more relevant search results in the future. For example, someone who searches for [arthritis pain] to understand why an aging parent is experiencing joint pain might want to learn about nearby health facilities and potential treatments, whereas somebody who searches for [arthritis pain] because she is doing a research project might want results about how common arthritis is and what its risk factors are. Rather than make educated guesses about how many users are searching because they're sick, we're running this experiment to collect real statistics. This is not a permanent change, but a short-term experiment. A small percentage of random health-related searches will trigger the poll question.
For example, at the bottom of the search results for [headache], some users will see a survey which asks whether they were searching because they or someone they know has a headache:
Similarly, if you happen to search for [ibuprofen], a common anti-inflammatory drug, you might see a survey which asks whether you were searching because you or somebody you know is taking ibuprofen:
Data collected in this survey will be aggregated across thousands of users. Survey responses will be stored together with the original search query, but will not be associated with email addresses or other personally identifiable information. Survey data will not be used for advertising — it will only be used to help Google improve health-related search results and to help refine public health trends based on aggregated search queries, much like Google Flu Trends. You can learn more about how Google protects users' privacy at our Privacy Center.
For more information, please take a look at our FAQ.
New resources for non-profit and humanitarian mapping
Thursday 5/07/2009 12:39:00 PM
(Cross-posted from Lat Long Blog)
Our friends at MapAction have created a great new publication. Their Field Guide to Humanitarian Mapping was produced "to help humanitarian organisations to make use of mapping methods using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and related technologies". You can download the first edition for free (3.2MB PDF).
While the free field guide is designed to help organizations doing emergency work, it is relevant to many other organizations, and anyone looking to take advantage of geospatial tools and methods like GPS technologies for collecting data, free & open-source GIS software such as MapWindow for processing and analyzing data, and Google Earth and Google Maps for visualization and display.
Early last year, MapAction published a briefing paper (1MB PDF) on the use of Google Earth in the humanitarian sector. Since then, we've added several new features, like imagery acquisition dates and historical imagery, touring, ocean, and free GPS data import, all of which help users to visualize, share and explore their places and data in new and exciting ways.
Another great new resource is A Nonprofit's Introduction to Google's Online Mapping Tools, recently posted on TechSoup by Chris Peters and Mano Marks. It provides excellent advice on how organizations that have data to display can effectively use Google Maps and Google Earth for outreach and advocacy.
Some more handy Google Earth and Google Maps resources include:
* Google Earth Outreach (website with examples and tutorials)
* Maps 2.0 Resources from Humaninet
* A Rough Google Earth Guide (872kB PDF) form Mercy Corps
Finally, Google has a full suite of free tools available to non-profits on the Google for Non-Profits page.
Using the stimulus to advance smarter energy use
Wednesday 5/06/2009 03:07:00 PM
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed by President Obama in February, includes tens of billions of dollars in federal stimulus funding for clean energy. This investment gives our country an unprecedented opportunity to rebuild our energy system and make it cleaner and more efficient. It's also an opportunity to become "smarter" about the way we all use energy.
Getting smart about energy starts with empowering consumers and businesses with information and tools to make better energy choices. That's why we submitted comments today with the Department of Energy, asking them to put consumers first as they develop one of the more promising elements of the ARRA -- a $4.5 billion grant program for "smart" grid investments. We also asked the DOE to ensure the program contributes to President Obama's goal of funding the installation of 40 million smart electricity meters in American homes. You can read our comments here.
The advent of smart meters, the Internet and a myriad of other information technologies means that our interaction with electricity can be dramatically redefined. Instead of receiving a monthly bill in the mail, for example, we can receive information on electricity use in real time; instead of turning on the furnace or the A/C when once you are home, we can automate these systems or even control them remotely. We can even aggregate energy savings from appliances and electronic equipment from thousands of homes to avoid the need to build new power plants.
Using the stimulus to invest in the electricity grid can help accelerate this transformation, while in the process creating jobs and helping to diversify our energy supply. Most importantly, these investments can help consumers and businesses save energy and money. We feel it's important for the country not to miss this opportunity.
Experimental Flu Trends for Mexico
4/29/2009 09:35:00 AM
(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)
In November 2008 we launched Google Flu Trends after finding a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Google Flu Trends may be able to detect influenza outbreaks earlier than other systems because it estimates flu activity in near real time.
In response to recent inquiries from public health officials, we've been attempting to use Google search activity in Mexico to help track human swine flu levels. Experimental Flu Trends for Mexico is, as you might have guessed, very experimental. But the system has detected increases in flu-related searches in Mexico City (Distrito Federal) and a few other Mexican states in recent days, beginning early in the week of April 19-25.
In the United States, we were able to validate our estimates using data from a surveillance system managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). We have not verified our data for Mexico in the same manner, but we've seen that Google users in Mexico (and around the world) also search for many flu-related topics when they have flu-like symptoms. Given the tremendous recent attention to swine flu, our model tries to filter out search queries that are more likely associated with topical searches rather than searches by those who may be experiencing symptoms.
While we would prefer to validate this data and improve its accuracy, we decided to release an early version today so that it might help public health officials and concerned individuals get an up-to-date picture of the ongoing swine flu outbreak. As with our existing Flu Trends system, estimates are provided across many of Mexico's states and updated every day. Our current estimates of flu activity in the U.S. are still generally low as would be expected given the relatively low confirmed swine flu case count. However, we'll be keeping an eye on the data to look for any spike in activity.
We're keenly aware of the trust our users place in us and our responsibility to protect their privacy. Experimental Flu Trends for Mexico -- like Google Flu Trends -- cannot be used to identify individual users. The patterns we observe are only meaningful across large populations of Google searchers. We hope that this experimental release provides useful information.
For updates on swine flu and information on how to stay healthy during a disease outbreak, visit the CDC's swine flu site.
