Celebrating Pride 2012

We encourage people to bring their whole selves to work. And this month Googlers, Gayglers (gay Googlers), and their families and friends took this spirit to the streets in Pride parades and celebrations around the globe. In Sao Paulo, a group of 50 marched as a Google contingent for the first time ever. In San Francisco, more than 1,000 Googlers and allies marched (nearly doubling the number of people we had in 2011!). In New York, more than 700 of our friends and colleagues took over 5th Avenue marching alongside our double-decker Pride bus. And this weekend in Singapore, we’re sponsoring the Pink Dot celebration for the second consecutive year.

It’s not just through Pride that we show our support for the LGBT community. At Mardi Gras in Sydney, we hosted two Queer Thinking seminars on Activism in the Internet Age and Queer Careers. We also have big plans for the World Pride celebration in London this year, launching a “Legalise Love” Conference at Google London, partnering with organizations to identify ways to decriminalize homosexuality and eliminate homophobia around the world.

In addition to supporting the LGBT community outside of Google, we made some changes to our benefits offerings to support our Gayglers. Earlier this year, we enhanced our transgender-inclusive benefits to cover transitioning procedures and treatment in accordance with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s (WPATH) Standards of Care, which includes coverage for procedures like facial feminization for transgender women and pectoral implants for transgender men. We also increased our lifetime maximum coverage for these benefits to $75K—more than double what it had been previously.

Next month we’ll carry the energy of Pride into our fourth annual company Diversity & Inclusion celebration, the Sum of Google. The Sum is an opportunity to celebrate and engage in a discussion about diversity and inclusion across our offices around the world.

Take a look at the photos below for a peek at this year's Pride celebrations.

Posted by Randy Reyes, Gaygler and Global Diversity & Inclusion Team Member

Adding associates to manage your YouTube presence

Webmaster level: All

Many organizations have multiple presences on the web. For example, Webmaster Tools lives at www.google.com/webmasters, but it also has a Twitter account and a YouTube channel. It's important that visitors to these other properties have confidence that they are actually associated with the Webmaster Tools site. However to date it has been challenging for webmasters to manage which users can take actions on behalf of their site in different services.

Today we're happy to announce a new feature in Webmaster Tools that allows webmasters to add "associates" -- trusted users who can act on behalf of your site in other Google products. Unlike site owners and users, associates can't view site data or take any site actions in Webmaster Tools, but they are authorized to perform specific tasks in other products.

For this initial launch, members of YouTube's partner program that have created a YouTube channel for their site can now link the two together. By doing this, your YouTube channel will be displayed as the "official channel" for your website.

Management within Webmaster Tools

To add or change associates:

1. On the Webmaster Tools home page, click the site you want.
2. Under Configuration, click Associates.
   
3. Click Add a new associate.
4. In the text box, type the email address of the person you want to add.
5. Select the type of association you want.
   
6. Click Add.
   

Management within YouTube

It’s also possible for users to request association from a site’s webmaster.

1. Log in to your YouTube partner account.
2. Click on the user menu and choose Settings > Associated Website.
3. Fill in the page you would like to associate your channel with.
   
4. Click Add. If you’re a verified owner of the site, you’re done. But if someone else in your organization manages the website, the association will be marked Pending. The owner receives a notification with an option to approve or deny the request.
   
5. After approval is granted, navigate back to this page and click Refresh to complete the association.

Through associates, webmasters can easily and safely allow others to associate their website with YouTube channels. We plan to support integration with additional Google products in the future.

If you have more questions, please see the Help with Associates article or visit our webmaster help forum.

Posted by Konstantin Roslyakov, Software Engineer

Chrome & Apps @ Google I/O: Your web, everywhere

This morning we kicked off day 2 at I/O to talk about the open web—one of the most amazing platforms we have seen. To put things in perspective, today there are more than 2.3 billion users on the web—a staggering number, but it only represents one-third of the world’s population. There’s still a lot of opportunity for growth.

Chrome, which we built from the ground up as a browser for the modern web, has seen tremendous adoption. Thanks to many of you, Chrome has nearly doubled since last year’s I/O—from 160 million to 310 million active users around the world. As more and more of you live your lives online, we want to to help make it easy for you to live in the cloud...seamlessly.

A better web to your web
One of the most exciting shifts is the explosion of the mobile web. When Chrome first launched, many people were tethered to a single computer. Today most people use multiple computers, smartphones and tablets. With that trend in mind, our goal is to offer you a consistent, personalized web experience across all devices. In February, we released Chrome for Android, which exited beta this week and is the standard browser on Nexus 7, a powerful new tablet.

Starting today, Chrome is also available for your iPhone and iPad. That means you can enjoy the same speedy and simple Chrome experience across your devices. Also, by signing in to Chrome, you can easily move from your desktop, laptop, smartphone and tablet and have all of your stuff with you.



Living in the cloud
A modern browser is just one ingredient of living online seamlessly. We continue to invest in building cloud apps, which many people rely on daily. Gmail, which launched in 2004, has evolved from a simple email service to the primary mode of communication for more than 425 million active users globally. We’ve also built a suite of apps to help users live in the cloud, including Google Documents, Spreadsheets, Calendar and more.

At the hub of this cloud experience is Google Drive—a place where you can create, share, collaborate and keep all your stuff. Ten weeks ago we launched Drive and in 10 weeks, more than 10 million users have signed up. Today we introduced more capabilities, including offline editing for Google documents and a Drive app for your iPhone and iPad. Drive is also seamlessly integrated into Chrome OS. With Drive available across Mac, Windows, Chrome OS, Android and iOS, it’s even easier to get things done in the cloud from anywhere.

Going Google
With the help of Chrome and and the growth of Google apps, people are discovering new ways to get things done faster, connect with others, and access their information no matter what device they’re using. This is what we call “going Google.” And it’s not just individual people. Schools, government institutions and businesses—big and small—are also “going Google.” Sixty-six of the top 100 universities in the U.S., government institutions in 45 out of 50 U.S. states, and a total of 5 million business are using Google Apps to live and work in the cloud.

It’s an exciting time to be living online. To celebrate this ongoing journey, here’s a quick look back at the evolution of Chrome:



None of what we shared onstage at I/O today would be possible without the awe-inspiring work being done by a global community of developers and the continued support of our users. We can’t wait to see what you do next.

Posted by Sundar Pichai, SVP, Chrome & Apps

Nivea Firming Good-bye Cellulite Serum

Did I mention I'm going on holiday soon? Not that I am excited or anything...
So, I am doing everything last minute which includes looking at my thighs which are bumpier than they should be even though they walk me everywhere. I am pinning all my hopes on Nivea Firming Good-bye Cellulite Serum Q10 plus which is said to firm the skin and reduce the appearance of cellulite in 10 days.


Five days in and my skin does look a bit better, less bumpy and smoother. What I really like is the fact that this serum (more like a gel really) is cool to the touch and lovely to put on after a shower. It's absorbed really easily and at £11.29 from Boots it's worth a punt. Nivea Firming Good-bye Cellulite Serum, £11.29.

Project Glass demo: Hangouts IN Air

This morning at the Google I/O conference we did a special kind of demo. I'm very proud of the talented skydivers, mountain bikers and rappellers we worked with to push technology limits while showing the amazing potential of Project Glass. Check out one of their practice jumps.



We want to share more about this demonstration with all of you, so please tune in live tomorrow—weather permitting!—at roughly 11:00a.m. PDT on YouTube.

You might just catch another Hangout in Air.

Posted by Sergey Brin, Co-Founder


Update June 28: The link for the demo today has changed. Tune in to this YouTube link to watch.

More from Etsy - I can't keep away...

Browsing back to one of my favourite sites I see there are lots more great little things to make my fingers twitch towards my credit card. Etsy.com really is full of surprises and here are some of my favourites this month...




This is a bird tree from Turkey, and the branches are covered with tiny little birds. It's 33cm x 33cm and is made from, well wood and metal. It reminds me of Russian Fairytales though I'm not sure why. And it's around £100 plus p&p.



Awe I love this tiny gold plated skull necklace on a 16 inch chain with a silver clasp. A bargain at £13 plus p&p.



I'm way too old to wear this boho headdress - but someone very young and very beautiful would look fabulous in it under a festival sky. Ostrich black feather vintage multi-coloured brass bead headpiece, around £90 plus p&p.



Oh to have this bottom - and the Gennia Maillot onepiece is pretty gorgeous too....Around £60 plus p&p.

+1

For our international readers, this post is also available in French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish (Latin America, Spain). - Ed.

A year ago we started a small project called Google+—to bring friends and family closer together, and to inspire new connections through meaningful conversation. Today more than 250 million people have upgraded to Google+, and we want to give thanks. To you. It's your support and your voice that give the service soul, and we’re grateful.



We figure the best way to show our appreciation is to keep listening and making improvements, so today we're rolling out two major updates in response to your feedback: Google+ for tablets, and Google+ Events.

Google+ for tablets: putting mobile first, on lots more devices
Back in May we introduced new versions of Google+ for Android and iOS phones. In both cases we went native (with gestural navigation, fullscreen media and face-to-face video), and it’s had a powerful impact on community engagement. In fact, more people now use Google+ from a mobile device than a desktop computer, and today’s tablet release will quicken this trend.

Of course, our tablet app isn’t just bigger, like our mobile app isn’t just smaller. It’s designed with the device in mind, and it includes:

• A beautiful stream that styles content based on popularity, type and orientation
• A “lean back” Hangouts experience that’s great for the couch or common room
• Crisper text, fuller photos and easily-tappable actions like +1 and comment

Selected screenshots from today’s tablet release

The Android app is rolling out to phones and tablets later today (v3.0), and the iPad update is coming soon.

Google+ Events: for all the moments that matter—before, during and after
To celebrate is human. It’s how we connect with others, honor friends and family, or simply unwind after a long week. We save the date for picnics, parties and nuptials, and we cherish these moments for a lifetime. Unfortunately, the subtlety and substance of real-world events is lost online.

Today’s online event tools are really just web forms that ask, “Are you going?” Worse yet, they bail when you need them the most: during the actual event, and after everyone leaves. In life we plan, we party and we keep in touch. Software should make all of this more awesome, and that's exactly our aim with Google+ Events.



Before: send beautiful invites, and stay in sync with Calendar integration
Inviting someone to your home, your wedding or your favorite restaurant is a deeply personal act. You’re handpicking who’ll be in the room, after all, so invitees should feel part of something special. That’s why Google+ Events offers meaningful ways to build and send beautiful invitations, including:

• Cinemagraphic themes for your beach trip, weekend brunch, or baseball game (and a whole lot more)
• The ability to attach a personalized video greeting from YouTube
• Unique animations that make your invites a joy to receive

Google+ events also appear in Google Calendar automatically, and guests’ updates arrive instantly in the stream. The end result is a useful and beautiful place to manage your party.

During: share photos live with Party Mode
Photos are the cornerstone of any great event. They get people laughing and smiling, and they let us relive our favorite moments after the fact. The challenge—especially with the explosion in smartphones—is that too many photos get stranded in too many places. We struggle to even find people’s photos, let alone enjoy them all in one spot. Fortunately, Party Mode fixes these problems with a single tap.

Once you’ve enabled Party Mode on your mobile device, all of your new photos get added to the event in real-time. And as more guests turn on Party Mode, more pictures will instantly appear to fellow invitees. In this way Google+ Events gives your party a visual pulse; we’ve even added a "live slideshow" you can proudly project during the event.



After: see everyone’s pictures in one place
Once the guests go home, it's natural to reflect on the evening's events. We reminisce about the food, or the last dance, or the sparkle in someone’s eye. And we bask in the afterglow of shared experience for as long as memory allows. With Google+ Events you can now relive the party whenever you want, with a captivating and comprehensive set of photos.

Just visit your event page after it’s over, and you’ll see everyone’s pictures and comments in chronological order. You can also browse by popularity, photographer or photo tag with a few clicks. It’s easy, immersive and awesome.



Google+ has come a long way in a year, but we know we've got a long way to go. Fortunately we serve a community that's filled with thoughtful, committed individuals, and together we're creating something special. +1 person at a time.

Posted by Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President

Android @ I/O: the playground is open

(Cross-posted on the Official Android Blog)

Last year at Google I/O, we talked about momentum, mobile and more. This year, we’re picking up right where we left off. More than 400 million Android devices have now been activated—up from 100 million last June. And twelve new Android devices are activated every every second—that’s more than 1 million a day. Today, we’re rolling out a new version of Android called Jelly Bean, adding more entertainment to Google Play, and introducing two powerful—yet distinctly different Nexus devices to bring you the best of Google.

Jelly Bean: simple, beautiful and beyond smart
Jelly Bean builds on top of Ice Cream Sandwich. It makes everything smoother, faster and more fluid. For example, notifications are now more dynamic: if you’re late for a meeting or missed a call, you can email or call directly from notifications. The keyboard is smarter and more accurate, and can predict your next word. And voice typing is faster, working even when you don’t have a data connection.

We’ve redesigned search from the ground up in Jelly Bean, with a new user interface and faster, more natural Voice Search. You can type your query or simply ask Google a question. Google can speak back to you, delivering a precise answer, powered by the Knowledge Graph, if it knows one, in addition to a list of search results.

Today’s smart devices still rely on you to do pretty much everything—that is, until now. Google Now is a new feature that gets you just the right information at just the right time. It tells you today’s weather before you start your day, how much traffic to expect before you leave for work, or your favorite team's score as they’re playing. There’s no digging required: cards appear at the moment you need them most.



Starting in mid-July, we’ll start rolling out over-the-air updates to Galaxy Nexus, Motorola Xoom and Nexus S, and we’ll also release Jelly Bean to open source.

Google Play: more entertainment
Google Play is your digital entertainment destination, with more than 600,000 apps and games plus music, movies and books. It’s entirely cloud-based, which means all of your content is always available across all of your devices. Today our store is expanding to include magazines. We’ve been working with leading publishers Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith and more to offer magazines like House Beautiful, Men’s Health, Shape and WIRED.

Now, you can also purchase movies in addition to renting them. And we’re adding television shows on Google Play—in fact, we’re adding thousands of episodes of broadcast and cable TV shows, like "Revenge," "Parks & Recreation" and "Breaking Bad," from some of the top studios, like ABC Studios, NBCUniversal and Sony Pictures. You can play back movies and TV shows on all your Android devices, through Google Play on the web, and on YouTube, and soon we’ll bring the experience to Google TV devices.

Movie purchases, TV shows and magazines are available today on play.google.com, and will roll out to Google Play on devices over the coming days.

Nexus 7: powerful, portable and designed for Google Play
All of this great Google Play content comes to life on Nexus 7, a powerful new tablet with a vibrant, 7” 1280x800 HD display. The Tegra-3 chipset, with a quad-core CPU and 12-core GPU, makes everything, including games, extremely fast. And best of all, it’s only 340 grams, lighter than most tablets out there. Nexus 7 was built to bring you the best of Google in the palm of your hand. Hang out with up to 10 friends on Google+ using the front-facing camera, browse the web blazingly fast with Chrome and, of course, crank through your emails with Gmail.



Nexus 7 comes preloaded with some great entertainment, including the movie "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," the book “The Bourne Dominion,” magazines like Condé Nast Traveler and Popular Science, and songs from bands like Coldplay and the Rolling Stones. We’ve also included a $25 credit to purchase your favorite movies, books and more from Google Play, for a limited time. Nexus 7 is available for preorder today from Google Play in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia, and starts at $199 in the U.S. It will start shipping mid-July.

Nexus Q: It’s a sphere!
It's great to be able to take your entertainment with you wherever you go, but sometimes you want to ditch the headphones and enjoy music with friends and family. So we’re introducing Nexus Q, which combines the power of Android and Google Play to easily stream music and video in your home—all controlled by an Android phone or tablet. Designed and engineered by Google, Nexus Q is a small sphere that plugs into the best speakers and TV in your house. It’s the first-ever social streaming device—like a cloud-connected jukebox where everyone brings their own music to the party. Available first in the U.S., you can preorder Nexus Q today from Google Play for $299, and it will ship mid-July.



If you own one of the 400 million Android devices out there, you already know that it’s much more than simply a phone or tablet. It’s your connection to the best of Google—all of your stuff and entertainment, everywhere you go. Now you have a new version of Android, more entertainment and a growing portfolio of Nexus devices to choose from—all available in Google Play. The playground is open.

Posted by Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile and Digital Content

Using large-scale brain simulations for machine learning and A.I.

You probably use machine learning technology dozens of times a day without knowing it—it’s a way of training computers on real-world data, and it enables high-quality speech recognition, practical computer vision, email spam blocking and even self-driving cars. But it’s far from perfect—you’ve probably chuckled at poorly transcribed text, a bad translation or a misidentified image. We believe machine learning could be far more accurate, and that smarter computers could make everyday tasks much easier. So our research team has been working on some new approaches to large-scale machine learning.

Today’s machine learning technology takes significant work to adapt to new uses. For example, say we’re trying to build a system that can distinguish between pictures of cars and motorcycles. In the standard machine learning approach, we first have to collect tens of thousands of pictures that have already been labeled as “car” or “motorcycle”—what we call labeled data—to train the system. But labeling takes a lot of work, and there’s comparatively little labeled data out there.

Fortunately, recent research on self-taught learning (PDF) and deep learning suggests we might be able to rely instead on unlabeled data—such as random images fetched off the web or out of YouTube videos. These algorithms work by building artificial neural networks, which loosely simulate neuronal (i.e., the brain’s) learning processes.

Neural networks are very computationally costly, so to date, most networks used in machine learning have used only 1 to 10 million connections. But we suspected that by training much larger networks, we might achieve significantly better accuracy. So we developed a distributed computing infrastructure for training large-scale neural networks. Then, we took an artificial neural network and spread the computation across 16,000 of our CPU cores (in our data centers), and trained models with more than 1 billion connections.

We then ran experiments that asked, informally: If we think of our neural network as simulating a very small-scale “newborn brain,” and show it YouTube video for a week, what will it learn? Our hypothesis was that it would learn to recognize common objects in those videos. Indeed, to our amusement, one of our artificial neurons learned to respond strongly to pictures of... cats. Remember that this network had never been told what a cat was, nor was it given even a single image labeled as a cat. Instead, it “discovered” what a cat looked like by itself from only unlabeled YouTube stills. That’s what we mean by self-taught learning.

One of the neurons in the artificial neural network, trained from still frames from unlabeled YouTube videos, learned to detect cats.

Using this large-scale neural network, we also significantly improved the state of the art on a standard image classification test—in fact, we saw a 70 percent relative improvement in accuracy. We achieved that by taking advantage of the vast amounts of unlabeled data available on the web, and using it to augment a much more limited set of labeled data. This is something we’re really focused on—how to develop machine learning systems that scale well, so that we can take advantage of vast sets of unlabeled training data.

We’re reporting on these experiments, led by Quoc Le, at ICML this week. You can get more details in our Google+ post or read the full paper (PDF).

We’re actively working on scaling our systems to train even larger models. To give you a sense of what we mean by “larger”—while there’s no accepted way to compare artificial neural networks to biological brains, as a very rough comparison an adult human brain has around 100 trillion connections. So we still have lots of room to grow.

And this isn’t just about images—we’re actively working with other groups within Google on applying this artificial neural network approach to other areas such as speech recognition and natural language modeling. Someday this could make the tools you use every day work better, faster and smarter.

Posted by Jeff Dean, Google Fellow and Andrew Ng, Visiting Faculty

Become a Google power searcher

You may already be familiar with some shortcuts for Google Search, like using the search box as a calculator or finding local movie showtimes by typing [movies] and your zip code. But there are many more tips, tricks and tactics you can use to find exactly what you’re looking for, when you most need it.

Today, we’ve opened registration for Power Searching with Google, a free, online, community-based course showcasing these techniques and how you can use them to solve everyday problems. Our course is aimed at empowering you to find what you need faster, no matter how you currently use search. For example, did you know that you can search for and read pages written in languages you’ve never even studied? Identify the location of a picture your friend took during his vacation a few months ago? How about finally identifying that green-covered book about gardening that you’ve been trying to track down for years? You can learn all this and more over six 50-minute classes.

Lessons will be released daily starting on July 10, 2012, and you can take them according to your own schedule during a two-week window, alongside a worldwide community. The lessons include interactive activities to practice new skills, and many opportunities to connect with others using Google tools such as Google Groups, Moderator and Google+, including Hangouts on Air, where world-renowned search experts will answer your questions on how search works. Googlers will also be on hand during the course period to help and answer your questions in case you get stuck.

Power Searching with Google blends the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) learning format pioneered by Stanford and MIT with our social and communication tools to create what we hope is a true community learning experience.

Visit the course homepage to learn more. By the end of this course, you'll know several new techniques that will make you a Google Power Searcher and help you find out information about whatever you can imagine—from how to prepare for a new family pet to where moss grows on Stonehenge or how to grow katniss in your garden. Sign up now!

Posted by Terry Ednacot, Education Program Manager

Tragedy strucks at Ibadan

Tragedy struck at the Apata market in Ibadan yesterday when seven persons, including a pregnant woman and a nursing mother, were instantly killed when a live high tension power cable of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) suddenly cut off and fell on traders at the ever busy market.

50 Cent cheats death again

50's SUV

 Here's how his website reported the accident which occurred last night in Queens:

50 Cent was in a bad accident tonight as his bullet-proof SUV was rear-ended by a Mack truck on the LIE in NYC. He was put on a stretcher and taken to the nearest Queens hospital where they are currently running test on his neck and back. His driver is also currently in the hospital as the SUV almost flipped over.

Supporting entrepreneurship in France at Le Camping

Entrepreneurs all around the world are building technologies that empower their communities and address both local and global audiences. Last week, a team of Googlers from 10 countries gathered in Paris to spend time with entrepreneurs and startups at Le Camping, an accelerator program that’s part of Silicon Sentier, an association focused on supporting promising digital projects in the Ile de France region. We celebrated the results of the first two seasons of the program and welcomed the new startups for season three.

Le Camping’s program selects 12 new startups each season (one season lasts six months). They “camp” in what used to be the facilities of the French Stock Exchange, symbolizing the bridge between the old and the new economy. During this time, the “campers” are coached by 60 mentors, mostly entrepreneurs but also engineers. We’ve been working in partnership with Le Camping for the last two seasons to provide hands-on training and mentorship to the 12 companies in each class.

We’ve already seen great success from the program. Out of the 24 teams from first two seasons, 40 percent of the startups have raised funds, 60 percent have paying clients and all of the startups belong to a strong and reliable community. The program does not take equity in the startups or charge them to take part; all that’s required is vision, passion and the desire to address a global audience.



This is just one of our efforts to support entrepreneurs in France. Last year we also launched Startup Cafe, an online platform which provides access to educational video content from several business schools designed for entrepreneurs, tools to help start a business and, with the help of the Agency for the Creation of Entrepreneurs, a map of public organizations that can help entrepreneurs.

We believe that the Internet and entrepreneurship are key drivers of economic development. A study from the European Commission highlighted that small enterprises are the driver for growth and employment: they generate nearly 70 percent of jobs in Europe and 60 percent of economic value added. McKinsey’s "Impact of Internet on the French economy" reported that when French SMEs use more web technologies, their growth is faster, their operating revenues are higher and their profitability is stronger.

We look forward to continuing to support entrepreneurship in France and are excited to follow the progress of the teams in season three of Le Camping: Home’n’go, Explee, Sketchfab, ForgetBox, Stormz, Fleex, Veezio, JellyNote, Augment, Webshell, Poutsch, Whale Street. Stay tuned!

Posted by Elisabeth Bargès, Public Policy Manager, Google France 

Garnier Ambre Solaire Golden Protect

I have a summer holiday on the horizon so sent along to an afternoon with Lorraine Kelly who is a Garnier Ambre Solaire ambassador. She is passionate about keeping safe in the sun, never goes anywhere without a good dollop of suncream (factor 30) and a sun- hat. Maybe that's why at 52 she looks so amazing! She also has brought up her children to be highly sun aware too and we all have to take on board that skin-cancers are on the increase in the UK - even with our dreadful summers.

The main messages to take on board are -

• Make sure you use enough sun-cream - most of us don't and therefore aren't getting proper protection
• Although you can buy lower SPF creams and lotions, 30 is really the one to go for in hot climates
• Stay out of the mid-day sun (so take a very long and leisurely lunch somewhere in the shade)
• Replenish your suncream when you have been playing a sport or swimming
• Using after sun helps to moisturise your skin and avoid peeling

I love this Garnier Ambre Solaire Golden Protect and can't wait to try it out on the beach soon. Like most people I am not a great colour when I go away and this is enriched with Monoi Oil so the fragrance is tropical and gorgeous. It conjures up the scent of frangipani and gardenia with coconut and seaweed - all far removed from many sun-tan lotions which don't smell particularly nice. this also has a real golden sheen - so even on pale skin you will look sparkly and shimmering in the sunshine.

It is available in 4 formats, SPF 10, £13.83, SPF 20 £16.03, SPF 30 £16.59. The Golden Touch Aftersun is £9.18. All prices are RRP. 

And here is another dreadful picture of me with Lorraine...

SEO essentials for startups in under 10 minutes

Webmaster Level: Beginner to Intermediate

Wondering how to be search-friendly but lacking time for SEO research? We’d like to help! Meta keywords tag? Google Search ignores it. Meta description? Good to include.
If you:

• Work on a company website that’s under 50ish pages.
• Hope to rank well for your company name and a handful of related terms (not lots of terms like a news agency or e-commerce site).
• Want to be smart about search engines and attracting searchers, but haven’t kept up with the latest search news.

Then perhaps set aside ten minutes for this video (or just the slides) and gain SEO peace of mind.

Everything I’d tell a startup if I had ten minutes as their SEO consultant.

More tips at developers.google.com/startups. Best of luck!

Written by Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead

Mr Bond launches DAISY at Ozone cinema yaba

Mr Bond

BOND EMERUWA, legendary director and the immediate past President of the Directors Guild of Nigeria comes back to film making with a bang as he releases his latest offering 'Daisy'.

The movie premier 'Daisy' was launched at the ozone cinema, yaba on  Saturday 23th of June,2012. Present are A-list Nollywood artiste like Chioma Chukwuka, Desmond Elliot amongst others were around to grace the movie premiere.

Dogs killed, cooked and served in China

Dogs are chopped up and cooked in front of diners at a dog meat market in Yulin City, Guangxi province, China. Incredible! The advanced Calabar way....lol

Manchester City and Ivorian defender Kolo Toure weds

Kolo Toure married his long time partner, Chimene Akassou, on Thursday June 14th in Abidjan. Kolo and Chimene have been together for more than ten years and have two children together. Kolo's brother,Yaya Toure, is currently the highest paid African player and African footballer of the Year

Happy married life Bro

11 Pertanyaan Penting Sebelum Menerbitkan Artikel Blog

Berapa kalikah sobat mengedit sebuah posting/artikel blog setelah menerbitkannya? Saya pernah menghadapi permasalahan serupa dan ada banyak penyebabnya: kesalahan ejaan kata lah, kesalahan link yang ditulis lah, materi yang keliru lah, keyword yang salah lah, judul yang kurang tepatlah dan lain sebagainya.




Sebagaimana yang dialami, sobat harus bolak-balik membuka post editor dan melakukan

Tune in to I/O Live at 9:30 a.m. PDT on June 27

Google I/O, our annual developer conference, begins in just two days, and this year, we’re bringing you more than 130 technical sessions, 20 code labs and 155 Sandbox partners. If you’re not here in San Francisco, you can still sign up for one of our 350+ I/O Extended events around the world or tune in to I/O Live to watch the live stream from wherever you are. This year’s conference kicks off on June 27 with the first day’s keynote at 9:30 a.m. and the second day’s keynote on June 28 at 10:00 a.m. PDT, so tune in early at developers.google.com/io to avoid missing the action!

Bookmark developers.google.com/io to watch I/O Live from your desktop, or download the Google I/O mobile app to access the live stream from your phone or tablet. For the truly entrepreneurial, check our liveblogging gadget, which lets you add your commentary and the live video feed from the Google I/O keynotes to your blog.

More than 40 sessions on Android, Chrome, Google+ and your favorite APIs will be streamed live, and all remaining session videos will be recorded and available shortly after the conference on Google Developers Live and the conference website. Between sessions, we’ll bring you behind-the-scenes footage featuring interviews with Googlers and attendees, tours of the Sandbox and more. The stream will also continue through our After Hours party (June 27 starting at 7:00 p.m. PDT), where we've teamed up with top entertainers, inventors, artists, educators and visionaries from all over the world for an amazing evening.

Posted by Mike Winton, Director of Developer Relations

In schools, all you need is web

While students in the northern hemisphere say goodbye to each other and another school year, we’re in sunny San Diego meeting with thousands of educators and administrators at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference. While on break from teaching, these folks are here to teach others how they’re bringing innovation into their classrooms—a lot of which centers around the web.

While the web was developed well before today’s students were born, it’s come a long way even since a year ago. Today you can access the web on any device, use the web offline and take advantage of amazing graphics. For example, you can get a powerful graphing calculator on the web today, for free.

It’s been really amazing to see how the web is impacting schools. We’ve heard great real-world stories about Google Apps for Education, but lately we’re hearing more and more about schools extending the functionality of Google Apps with educational apps available on the Chrome Web Store. There are tens of thousands of apps in the Chrome Web Store, and today we’re adding some new ones: ST Math, VoiceThread and Acheive3000.

To give you an idea of what’s possible on the web: Leyden High School District from Illinois is rolling out Chromebooks to their 3,500 students and are using apps like WeVideo, EasyBib, Vernier Labquest2, SlideRocket, Geogebra and Pearson’s OpenClass as part of their 1-to-1 learning initiative.

Students at East Leyden High School work together on their Chromebooks. Photo credit: East Leyden Art Teacher Anna Reed. 

Chromebooks as a tool for 1-to-1 learning
It’s great to see that many schools are choosing Chromebooks as an effective and affordable 1-to-1 education tool. There are more than 500 districts in the U.S. and Europe actively using Chromebooks, and today we’re pleased to welcome a few more to the community, including Rockingham Country Schools, N.C., Transylvania County Schools, N.C., and Fond du Lac School District, Wis.

Chromebooks are always new—just last month we announced new devices, an updated, app-centric user interface and new pricing for schools. Chromebooks also make it just as easy for administrators to distribute 10, 100 or 1,000 Chromebooks, saving precious summer vacation time previously spent installing software and policies on computers. And great news for schools looking to make hardware purchases: the PARCC and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortia confirmed Chromebooks meet hardware and operating system requirements for student assessments in the 2014-2015 school year.

Applications for education
Today at ISTE, we are introducing some new features for schools using Chromebooks that make it even easier to find, use, install and manage web apps for your entire school:

• Grade-level application packs are groups of Chrome Web Store apps that integrate tightly with Google’s suite of Apps for Education, divided by grade levels to meet different classroom needs. These packs are installable from the Chromebook management console. Many of them are free and we’ve worked with the app makers to offer discounts for bulk purchases.
• Organization-specific web app collections in the Chrome Web Store give administrators the ability to recommend apps to students, teachers and staff. The collection is visible only to the school, and admins can curate apps from the Chrome Web Store, application packs and web apps purchased elsewhere or private apps developed by the school. (This feature is also available to Chromebooks for Business customers from the control panel.)

We’ve enjoyed being a part of ISTE the past several years, and always look forward to hearing about new ways that students and teachers are using the web to do amazing things. (If you’re at the conference, come see us at booth 2603 and listen to or share a story!)

Posted by Vidya Nagarajan, Product Manager, Chromebooks for Education

Super Stressed? Help is at hand...

Stress. It's a funny thing because it manifests itself in many ways and sometimes feeling a bit 'stressed' can be a good thing as it allows you to focus and gets the adrenalin pumping. But like most things, too much of something is ultimately bad for you (and in the case of stress can be very bad indeed). Half a million of us in the UK believe work-related stress is actually affecting their health so this is a common problem which really shouldn't be ignored.

Many years ago I had a bit of a crisis. I dropped out of college and didn't know what I was going to do with my life, and all my friends seemed to have a path to follow while I was just hanging around and visiting the dole office. Not good! But I didn't feel that bad... I wasn't worried (oh the optimism of youth) and was back at home, and had a boyfriend and family who were supportive. I didn't feel stressed but my body told me otherwise. My stress manifested itself in agonising stomach cramps which had me doubled over in pain and could come on at any time. Once I got a job these miraculously disappeared along with my 'hidden' stress.

Stress can go as far as blighting your life or can simply stop you from relaxing properly in your downtime. If you need to relax or have worse symptoms of stress then an AXA PPP healthcare expert is on-hand to give you lots of great advice on stress and anxiety.

Don't suffer in silence and don't leave stress and feelings of anxiety unaddressed as they can take a real toll on your mental and physical health. If you're feeling the strain, Dr Mark Winwood is on hand, providing live and free support in the form on an online chat to anyone with questions on stress from 1pm - 3.30pm on Thursday 28th June (so this Thursday).

He really knows what he's talking about, being the clinical director for psychological health for AXA PPP healthcare's specialist Health Services division. He is a fellow of the British Pychological Society and is accredited by the Health Professional Council and is a chartered scientist - so you'll be in the best of hands.

If you can't make the live chat with AXA PPP's expert,  Dr Mark Winwood, then you can leave your questions in the comments below or through Facebook or via Twitter. Alternatively further information is available through the stress and relaxation articles on the be healthy section of the AXA PPP website where there are loads of tips to help you relax and take the stress out of your life.

This is a free service provided by AXA PPP to everyone - not just their customers, and your mental health and wellbeing are worth a few minutes. Take part in the online chat on Thursday 28th June - you really won't regret it.

 Image from Photo In Canvas

Latest looks from Fit-Flop for S/S

Meet this summer's 'must-have' - the Super T sneaker. In trend-friendly colours (choose from canvas, leather and suede) with streamlined design lines, simple seaming and a tailored toe-shape, it’s built with our new triple density Biomimetix™ midsole, for an ultra-comfy feel on a sleek silhouette. RRP £100.00

Anyone who reads this blog knows I'm a massive fit-flop fan and can walk miles with them firmly on my feet. Although they are not the cheapest on the market they do seem to last so are more of an investment than others. Here are some of the latest looks that caught my eye...

Half sneaker, half cut-out corset, the Gladda Tm has strung facings, soft, supple leather straps and a cool-girl ankle collar, this sexy new sandal is throwing down the gladiator gauntlet. Built with an ergonomically engineered, super-cushioned triple-density midsole, it's the definition of cool comfort. Available in black pearl, black, urban white and flame. RRP £250.00

Meet the UNO, our neat, chic scoop-cut slip-on: a handcrafted ballerina with a hidden wedge that adds a little height to make your legs look amazingly graceful. A gorgeous shoe-wardrobe basic, built with our slim-cut, ultra-comfy Biomimetix™ midsole. Available in tan, flame, milk, black and black mix. RRP £200.00

A tribute to Turing, the father of modern computing

“The past is a foreign country—they do things differently there.” It’s a saying that rings especially true in the world of technology. But while innovating requires us to focus on the future, there are times when it’s important to look back. Today—the 100th anniversary of Alan Turing’s birth—is one such moment.

Statue of Alan Turing at Bletchley Park

Turing’s life was one of astounding highs and devastating lows. While his wartime codebreaking saved thousands of lives, his own life was destroyed when he was convicted for homosexuality. But the tragedy of his story should not overshadow his legacy. Turing’s insight laid the foundations of the computer age. It’s no exaggeration to say he’s a founding father of every computer and Internet company today.

Turing’s breakthrough came in 1936 with the publication of his seminal paper “On Computable Numbers” (PDF).  This introduced two key concepts, “algorithms” and “computing machines”—commonplace terms today, but truly revolutionary in the 1930’s:

• Algorithms are, in simplest terms, step-by-step instructions for carrying out a mathematical calculation. This is where it all started for programming since, at its core, all software is a collection of algorithms.
• A computing machine—today better known as a Turing machine—was the hypothetical device that Turing dreamed up to run his algorithms. In the 1930’s, a “computer” was what you called a person who did calculations—it was a profession, not an object. Turing’s paper provided the blueprint for building a machine that could do any computation that a person could, marking the first step towards the modern notion of a computer.

Considering the role computers now play in everyday life, it’s clear Turing’s inventions rank among the most important intellectual breakthroughs of the 20th century. In the evolution of computing, all paths trace back to Turing. That’s why Turing is a hero to so many Google engineers, and why we’re so proud to help commemorate and preserve his legacy.

In 2010, Google helped Bletchley Park raise funds to purchase Turing’s papers so they could be preserved for public display in their museum. More recently, we’ve been working closely with curators at London’s Science Museum to help put on a stunning new exhibition “Codebreaker - Alan Turing’s Life and Legacy.” This tells the story of Turing’s vast achievements in a profoundly moving and personal way, through an amazing collection of artifacts—including items loaned by GCHQ, the U.K. government intelligence agency, never before on public display. Topics addressed include Turing’s early years, his code-breaking at Bletchley Park, his designs for the Pilot Ace computer, his later morphogenesis work, as well as his sexuality and death. The exhibition opened on June 21 and is well worth a visit if you’re passing through London in the next year.

And finally, we couldn’t let such a momentous occasion pass without a doodle. We thought the most fitting way of paying tribute to Turing’s incredible life and work would be to simulate the theoretical “Turing machine” he proposed in a mathematical paper. Visit the homepage today— we invite you to try your hand at programming it. If you get it the first time, try again... it gets harder!

Turing was born into a world that was very different, culturally and technologically, from ours—but his contribution has never been more significant. I hope you’ll join me today in paying tribute to Alan Turing, the forefather of modern computing.

Posted by Andrew Eland, Engineering Director, Google U.K.

Project Re: Brief, the documentary

A few months ago, we introduced Project Re: Brief, our experiment to reimagine online advertising. We took some of the most loved ad campaigns from the ‘60s and ‘70s and and brought them back to life for the digital age with the help of the advertising legends that made them in the first place. Together, we created a series of ads designed to start conversations and fire up imaginations about what technology can make possible, such as ads that enable two strangers on opposite sides of the world to connect over a can of soda, or that translate a customer service experience into an instant, shareable, personalized animated video.

But Re: Brief is not just about the ads themselves. It’s also about the creative process behind them: bringing “old school” advertising legends and technologists into the same room to create digital ads that consumers love as much as they loved the iconic campaigns of yesterday. To share this experience, today we premiered the documentary film Project Re: Brief, directed by Emmy winner Doug Pray, at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity—also available on YouTube.

This hour-long documentary follows the story of the five art directors and copywriters who made the original ads as they come out of retirement to “Re: Brief” their classic campaigns: Harvey Gabor (Coca-Cola’s “Hilltop); Amil Gargano (Volvo’s “Drive it like you hate it”); Paula Green (Avis’ “We try harder”); and Howie Cohen and Bob Pasqualina (Alka-Seltzer’s “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing”). While major shifts in technology have reshaped the advertising business, as we learned from our heroes of the past, the basic tenets of storytelling haven’t changed. We found these icons’ ideas, wisdom and passion for great advertising inspiring and hope you do as well.



For more details on the film and the Cannes Lions festival, visit our Agency Blog.

Posted by Aman Govil, Project Re: Brief Lead

Fueling great nonprofits with technology

Technology can make collaboration easier, cut costs and help operations run more efficiently. Unfortunately, the organizations trying to solve some of the world’s most difficult problems—nonprofits—often lack resources to fully take advantage of technology to further their causes.

That’s why we worked with the HandsOn Network, a Points of Light Enterprise, to create HandsOn Tech, an initiative that pairs U.S. nonprofits with individuals who are passionate about technology and looking to make a difference. Last year, we funded 24 full-time AmeriCorps VISTA positions. These VISTA members provided technology training to more than 1,300 small, poverty-focused nonprofits nationwide. Further, these VISTA participants engaged skilled volunteers, including lots of Googlers, to assist nearly 200 nonprofits in creating individualized, comprehensive tech plans that will help them to work more efficiently.

Each HandsOn Tech VISTA project varies based on different nonprofit needs. In the past year, projects have included:

• Migrating Dreams for Kids, a Chicago nonprofit empowering at-risk and disabled youth, to Google Apps—enabling them to more efficiently and effectively collaborate without the restriction of limited office space.
• Building a dynamic website and social media strategy for Doing Art Together, a NYC-based nonprofit providing hands-on programming and GED prep for under-resourced youth.
• Using Google Maps and Fusion Tables to help Atlanta’s The Drake House create a map that helps staff better visualize the local homeless population in order to more effectively distribute their services.

HandsOn Tech Pittsburgh hosted a panel on social media tools, including Google+, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, with local nonprofits at the Google Pittsburgh office

The program has been so successful that we’re expanding—it will now include one additional city and 28 new VISTA positions, with the goal of reaching even more nonprofits. The new HandsOnTech VISTAs will start in August with a one week training at our campus in Mountain View, Calif., where they’ll learn about cloud-based tools from a variety of technology companies including the Google For Nonprofits suite that allows many nonprofits to use free online advertising, Google Apps and YouTube channels. Once they are armed with tech know-how they’ll spend the rest of the year in two and three-person teams serving nonprofits in the Bay Area, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Pittsburgh and Seattle.

HandsOn Tech is accepting applications for VISTA members now through June 27. If you’re passionate about technology and helping nonprofits on the front line of fighting poverty, then we hope you’ll apply!

Posted by Matt Dunne, Head of Community Affairs

A Storm in a D cup

More companies are realising that not all women come with small boobs - in fact most have an ample handful   and are full of angst followed on by anger when trying to find swimwear.

Storm in a D Cup provides super stylish and chic swimwear for women over a D plus cup size. Fashion is foremost but so is support and this is magic as it is virtually hidden! Styles include the monokini, halterneck, balconette, tankini and one-piece with bottoms to mix and match including tie side, hipster, belted and sash pants. Swimwear starts at £75 for a set which is about standard for extra large cup sizes - and is cheaper than a lot of other designer alternatives. They offer free UK delivery.

Aromatherapy Associates opens first day-spa!

It was first thing in the morning and it was Knightsbridge but I love the products so thought a trip to check out the Aromatherapy Associates day spa to have a nose was well worth the early start and the trip across town.

It is lovely - I could have moved in and even if you don't want a treatment experts are on hand to help you choose exactly the right products for you.

Aromatherapy Associates shop

One of the fabulous treatment rooms

The downstairs chill out room

Treatments start at £90 for an hour and £120 for an hour and a half.
Aromatherapy Associates Day Spa, 5 Montpelier Street, London SW7.

The Endangered Languages Project: Supporting language preservation through technology and collaboration

The Miami-Illinois language was considered by some to be extinct. Once spoken by Native American communities throughout what’s now the American Midwest, its last fluent speakers died in the 1960s. Decades later, Daryl Baldwin, a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, began teaching himself the language from historical manuscripts and now works with the Miami University in Ohio to continue the work of revitalizing the language, publishing stories, audio files and other educational materials. Miami children are once again learning the language and—even more inspiring—teaching it to each other.

Daryl’s work is just one example of the efforts being made to preserve and strengthen languages that are on the brink of disappearing. Today we’re introducing something we hope will help: the Endangered Languages Project, a website for people to find and share the most up-to-date and comprehensive information about endangered languages. Documenting the 3,000+ languages that are on the verge of extinction (about half of all languages in the world) is an important step in preserving cultural diversity, honoring the knowledge of our elders and empowering our youth. Technology can strengthen these efforts by helping people create high-quality recordings of their elders (often the last speakers of a language), connecting diaspora communities through social media and facilitating language learning.



The Endangered Languages Project, backed by a new coalition, the Alliance for Linguistic Diversity, gives those interested in preserving languages a place to store and access research, share advice and build collaborations. People can share their knowledge and research directly through the site and help keep the content up-to-date. A diverse group of collaborators have already begun to contribute content ranging from 18th-century manuscripts to modern teaching tools like video and audio language samples and knowledge-sharing articles. Members of the Advisory Committee have also provided guidance, helping shape the site and ensure that it addresses the interests and needs of language communities.

Google has played a role in the development and launch of this project, but the long-term goal is for true experts in the field of language preservation to take the lead. As such, in a few months we’ll officially be handing over the reins to the First Peoples' Cultural Council (FPCC) and The Institute for Language Information and Technology (The LINGUIST List) at Eastern Michigan University. FPCC will take on the role of Advisory Committee Chair, leading outreach and strategy for the project. The LINGUIST List will become the Technical Lead. Both organizations will work in coordination with the Advisory Committee.

As part of this project, research about the world’s most threatened languages is being shared by the Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat), led by teams at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and Eastern Michigan University, with funding provided by the National Science Foundation. Work on ELCat has only just begun, and we’re sharing it through our site so that feedback from language communities and scholars can be incorporated to update our knowledge about the world’s most at-risk languages.

Building upon other efforts to preserve and promote culture online, Google.org has seeded this project’s development. We invite interested organizations to join the effort. By bridging independent efforts from around the world we hope to make an important advancement in confronting language endangerment. This project’s future will be decided by those inspired to join this collaborative effort for language preservation. We hope you’ll join us.

Posted by Clara Rivera Rodriguez and Jason Rissman, Project Managers, The Endangered Languages Project

Philips ReAura gets a try out...

 

I have written about the launch of the Philips ReAura before but now I have got my hands on this amazing development in home beauty treatments. Promising to dramatically improve the quality of my skin, from high colour and age spots to wrinkles and lines, it is not to be taken lightly as it is fairly costly and is, after all, using lasers.

Using revolutionary light treatment the Philips ReAura laser skin rejuvenation home treatment is endorsed by leading Harley Street cosmetic dermatologist Dr Sam Bunting and is the first home treatment of it's kind to come to the UK. It is clinically proven to achieve skincare results and in 93% of users there was a visible improvement.

I had to have a chat with one of the Philips ReAura experts first before they would send me the machine to try out. I was asked if I suffered from skin break-outs, whether I'd been in the sun recently, if I was under any specific treatment and given the go-ahead I was quite excited to get going for the month that I had promised to give the treatment my full attention. 

So, how does it work? Thousands of microscopic laser beams are delivered to specific areas and these beams pass down through the epidermis and dermis of the skin, creating a pattern of microscopic treatment zones. This triggers the skin's natural cell renewal process, so even the sensitive and line prone areas like the eyes and mouth look more plumped up and therefore, youthful. Sun spots and age spots fade and you get an even skin tone. I have all of these so am keen to see an improvement. Oh and a very wrinkly neck - tiny wrinkles at the moment but I know they will soon turn to something much more noticeable - so any help is gratefully received!



So how did I get on? I must say I was a bit apprehensive but all is very neat and small and there is even a DVD to make sure I am doing it right. I had to apply the supplied gel to my fully cleansed face and then I lightly used it on my face, neck and chest. The machine won't let you over-use it so there is no chance of coming to harm and the second cream I applied after the treatment was soothing. It did tingle - almost prickle - but I'm not a wimp and  persevered and although my skin was a bit red it was all gone down by the morning. So I would recommend you using it before bedtime unless you want to go out looking a bit puce!

It does take a while to work - testers have put it through it's paces for 12 weeks, but over the next month I will be reposting with updates to see how it all works.

The Philips ReAura is £799 from space:nk.