In the nearly ten months since the Haiti earthquake, Google has engaged with and learned a lot about the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. When we looked at our internal data a few months ago we were particularly saddened, although not entirely surprised, to find that the country’s Internet bandwidth -- a critical component of any modern economy -- was radically lower than that of its close neighbors.

At the request of the Clinton Foundation, and with some input from external experts like Inveneo, we recently came up with some ideas for improving access to the Internet in Haiti and wrote them up in this paper (.pdf). They include opening TV or other appropriate spectrum for use, as the FCC recently approved in the United States, and different possibilities for connecting to undersea cables that would help make easy, cheap broadband connectivity a reality for Haitians.

These are some ideas to start the discussion. Multilateral institutions, entrepreneurs from around the globe, and the Haitian government and its citizens can all play a role in helping the Internet grow there. We believe a stronger Internet means a stronger economy and democracy, and we hope this discussion will help Haiti succeed.

Posted by John Lyman, Program Manager, Google.org

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Many of the world's smallest and most endangered languages have no written form and have never been recorded or scientifically documented. Today, the National Geographic Enduring Voices YouTube channel will launch and allow many of these tongues to have a presence on the Internet for the very first time. Linguists Dr. K. David Harrison and Dr. Gregory Anderson from the Living Tongues Institute have teamed up with Google.org to allow small and endangered languages that may have never been heard outside of a remote village to reach a global audience. Using YouTube as a platform, researchers, academics and communities can now collaborate more effectively on promoting language revitalization.

The YouTube channel features videos such as hip-hop performed by Songe Nimasow in the Aka language of India, songs by Aydyng Byrtan-ool, a talented young Tuvan singer and epic storyteller in Southern Siberia, and videos demonstrating how the Foe language of Papua New Guinea uses body parts to count from 1 to 37.

The launch of the channel comes on the heels of an announcement by Harrison and Anderson of a “hidden” language of India, known locally as Koro, that is new to science and had never been documented outside of its rural community. Koro is one of half of the world’s languages likely to vanish in the next 100 years.

In addition to using YouTube to help revitalize endangered and minority languages, communities can also take advantage of Google Translator Toolkit that announced the addition of 284 new languages last year to make translation faster and easier.

In the midst of a language extinction crisis, we are also seeing a global grassroots movement for language revitalization. Speakers are leveraging new technologies, such as social networking and YouTube, to sustain small languages. As Harrison describes in his book "The Last Speakers," we are all impoverished when a language dies, and all enriched by the human knowledge base found in the world's smallest tongues.

Learn more about Harrison and Anderson's efforts to document languages through the Enduring Voices Project.

Posted by Kirsten Olsen Cahill, Product Marketing Manager, Google.org

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(Cross-posted from The Official Google Blog)

Journalism is fundamental to a functioning democracy. So as media organizations globally continue to broaden their presence online, we’re eager to play our part on the technology side—experimenting with new ways of presenting news online; providing tools like Google Maps and YouTube Direct to make websites more engaging for readers; and investing heavily in our digital platforms to enable publishers to generate more revenue.

But while we’re mostly focused on working with news organizations to develop better products for users, we also believe it’s crucial to encourage innovation at the grassroots level. That’s why we’re giving $5 million in grants to non-profit organizations that are working to develop new approaches to journalism in the digital age. Our aim is to benefit news publishers of all sizes.

We’ve granted $2 million to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which has a proven track record of supporting programs that drive innovation in journalism. It will use $1 million to support U.S. grant-making in this crucial area. The other $1 million will augment the Knight News Challenge, which is accepting funding proposals from anyone, anywhere in the world, until December 1. Now in its fifth year, the News Challenge has supported projects like DocumentCloud, which aims to bring more investigative-reporting source material online so anyone can find and read it.

We’re eager to do even more internationally, so we will be investing the remaining $3 million in journalism projects in other countries through a similar partnership. Stay tuned for more details early next year.

We hope these grants will help new ideas blossom and encourage experimentation. As Thomas Edison once said, “When there’s no experimenting, there’s no progress. Stop experimenting and you go backward.” We look forward to working with the journalism community to help digital news move forward.

Posted by Nikesh Arora, President, Global Sales Operations and Business Development

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Could clean, reliable, baseload geothermal energy be produced in the Pioneer State?

The SMU Geothermal Laboratory, led by Principal Investigator Dr. David Blackwell, has discovered unexpectedly high temperatures beneath West Virginia capable of supporting geothermal energy production. As a result, they have increased estimates of West Virginia's total heat content by 78% and geothermal generation potential by 75%. The discovery was made as part of SMU's project to update the Geothermal Map of North America supported by Google's RE<C initiative. The finding, first reported today in Science News, will be presented at the upcoming Geothermal Resources Council conference in Sacramento, CA.

The finding indicates that West Virginia potentially holds the highest grade geothermal resources east of the Mississippi River. SMU estimates that 2% of West Virginia's geothermal resources could support over 18,890 megawatts of electrical generating capacity using Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) and other advanced geothermal technologies such as Co-Produced Fluids and Low Temperature Hydrothermal.

The results can be seen in the updated Google Earth layer on U.S. Geothermal Resources:

BEFORE............................AFTER

How'd they do it?

The SMU team has been developing entirely new pictures of the earth's geothermal resources. They have started by aggregating thousands of new Bottom Hole Temperature (BHT) temperature readings from oil, gas, and water wells in previously under-sampled regions of the U.S. For example, The 2004 Geothermal Map of North America featured only four temperature points informing geothermal estimates for West Virginia, compared to 1,455 points in the updated version. In addition, the team has improved estimates of heat flow through the earth's crust with better regional lithologic data. The new results indicate the potential for temperatures as high as 200c (392 f) at depths of 5 kilometers (16,404 feet).

SMU's full U.S. project will be completed in early 2011 with a new map and national resource estimatess. With improvements in EGS technology, these resources can be harnessed to provide clean, reliable, baseload renewable power 24/7/365.

Our congratulations go out to the SMU team for their exiting discovery: Dr. David Blackwell, Maria Richards, Zachary Frone, and Joseph Batir.

For more information on Google.org's geothermal investments and research projects, please visit google.org/egs.

Posted by Charles Baron, Geothermal Program Lead, Google.org

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