Marzo, 2022

Since 2013, Women Techmakers Ambassadors (WTM) have brought people around the world together throughout March and April in celebration of International Women’s Day (IWD), hosting events to connect and educate their local tech communities. This year’s theme is #ProgressNotPerfection, the idea of letting go of preconceived ideas of perfection and fears of failure, and instead celebrating progress in its many forms.

I recently spoke with three WTM Ambassadors planning these events to hear what they’re most looking forward to.

WTM Ambassador Maryam Alhuthayfi

For IWD this year, Maryam is hosting tech workshops as well as leading a WTM Saudi #IAmRemarkable session to encourage women to explore technology. “There aren’t as many opportunities for women in tech in Saudi Arabia, so we need to push them forward to be visible, for companies to see that they are capable,” she says.

True to the #ProgressNotPerfection theme, Maryam wants women to be unafraid of mistakes. “You can correct them once you know the best way to do things,” she says. “This is how you get better with time. Be kind to each other; support each other; create positive energy in your communities and personal life.”

WTM Ambassador Anna Nemerova

Growing up in Bulgaria, Anna Nemerova remembers making cards and gifts for her mother and grandmother on International Women’s Day, which is widely celebrated in Eastern Bloc countries. When she moved to the U.S., Anna’s first IWD event was in New York City in 2018, where she gave a talk about using Google Analytics for ecommerce. Anna made a point to connect with attendees there, ultimately making lifelong friends.

This year, Anna is hosting the New York City IWD event in person again. “As a woman in tech, I’m very often the only woman in the room, and WTM brings this positivity, where women are inspired and empowered to help each other.”

Anna is also hosting the IWD Northeast virtual event, which will include a hands-on NFT workshop. Participants’ NFTs will be sold, and proceeds will go to the Red Cross to aid the people of Ukraine.

WTM Ambassador Amanda Cavallaro

Amanda Cavallaro has been a co-organizer of the Google Developer Group Cloud chapter in London and a WTM ambassador since 2016.

In the past, she’s hosted an IWD karaoke tutorial (created using Google codelabs) and assisted with virtual events over the past two years. This year, she helped host a GraphQL workshop, roundtable discussions and a hybrid event with six speakers from all over the world. “Most of the speakers were women I mentor, and women who mentor me,” she says. “The WTM truly brings us together.”

Every day, people come to Google looking for ways to keep themselves and their families safe. From highlighting resources in the wake of a natural disaster to providing time-sensitive health information, we’re constantly working on new features and improvements to help you quickly find what you need. And advancements in AI can power new technologies, like flood forecasting, to help people stay out of harm’s way.

Here’s a look at how our AI systems are helping us connect people to critical information while avoiding potentially shocking or harmful content — so you can stay safe, both online and off.

Finding trustworthy, actionable information when you need it most

We know that people come to Search in the moments that matter most. Today, if you search on Google for information on suicide, sexual assault, substance abuse and domestic violence, you’ll see contact information for national hotlines alongside the most relevant and helpful results.

But people in personal crises search in all kinds of ways, and it’s not always obvious to us that they’re in need. And if we can’t accurately recognize that, we can’t code our systems to show the most helpful search results. That’s why using machine learning to understand language is so important.

Now, using our latest AI model, MUM, we can automatically and more accurately detect a wider range of personal crisis searches. MUM can better understand the intent behind people’s questions to detect when a person is in need, which helps us more reliably show trustworthy and actionable information at the right time. We’ll start using MUM to make these improvements in the coming weeks.

Steering clear of unexpected shocking content

Keeping you safe on Search also means helping you steer clear of unexpected shocking results. This can be challenging, because content creators sometimes use benign terms to label explicit or suggestive content. And the most prevalent content that matches your search may not be what you intended to find. In these cases, even if people aren’t directly seeking explicit content, it can show up in their results.

One way we tackle this is with SafeSearch mode, which offers users the option to filter explicit results. This setting is on by default for Google accounts for people under 18. And even when users choose to have SafeSearch off, our systems still reduce unwanted racy results for searches that aren’t seeking them out. In fact, every day, our safety algorithms improve hundreds of millions of searches globally across web, image and video modes.

But there’s still room for improvement, and we’re using advanced AI technologies like BERT to better understand what you’re looking for. BERT has improved our understanding of whether searches are truly seeking out explicit content, helping us vastly reduce your chances of encountering surprising search results.

This is a complex challenge we’ve been tackling for a while — but in the last year alone, this BERT improvement has reduced unexpected shocking results by 30%. It’s been especially effective in reducing explicit content for searches related to ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender, which can disproportionately impact women and especially women of color.

Scaling our protections around the world

MUM can transfer knowledge across the 75 languages it’s trained on, which can help us scale safety protections around the world much more efficiently. When we train one MUM model to perform a task — like classifying the nature of a query — it learns to do it in all the languages it knows.

For example, we use AI to reduce unhelpful and sometimes dangerous spam pages in your search results. In the coming months, we’ll use MUM to improve the quality of our spam protections and expand to languages where we have very little training data. We’ll also be able to better detect personal crisis queries all over the world, working with trusted local partners to show actionable information in several more countries.

Like any improvement to Search, these changes have and will continue to go through rigorous evaluation — with input from our search raters around the world to make sure we’re providing more relevant, helpful results. Whatever you’re searching for, we’re committed to helping you safely find it.

Thanks to regular automatic updates, Chromebooks are always stepping up their game. Each Chrome OS update helps your laptop (and you) get things done faster, easier and more securely.

And you might have noticed we’ve had a lot of them. In fact, Chrome OS officially hit update 100 this week. In celebration of the big 1-0-0, we’re sharing a few announcements to improve Chromebooks for everyone — whether you’re using them to work, learn, manage a business or just kick back and relax.

Find more with the new Launcher

With a quick press of the Everything Button on your keyboard or the circle icon on the bottom left corner of your screen, Chromebook’s Launcher has made it easy to search for your apps and files — and even find answers online. And now, Launcher is getting an updated design and enhanced search functionality to help you more easily find what you’re looking for.

First, you’ll notice that Launcher will open on the side of your screen instead of from the bottom — leaving more space for any windows you have open. You’ll also be able to organize your apps by name or color, or manually arrange them in any order you like. And when you download a new app, it will follow the same organizational style.

Searching with Launcher is also getting easier. Looking for that celebrity name on the tip of your tongue? Before, Launcher would show you a short preview of your search result. Now, it will show even more information — so you can check the weather or find that celebrity name, all without leaving Launcher. You can also quickly search for Chromebook shortcuts, like how to take a screenshot or turn on caps lock.

If you work with a lot of Chrome browser tabs and windows open (no judgment), it can be difficult to find the exact one you’re looking for. Instead of sifting through your tabs for that crossword puzzle you started this morning, a quick search in the new Launcher will direct you to the right open tab.

Keep an eye out for the new Launcher, rolling out to all Chromebooks soon.

Discover your next Chromebook

Our partners HP, Lenovo, Acer and ASUS recently announced several powerful Chromebooks to help you make the most of Chrome OS now and in future updates. Check out a few of our favorites, available for purchase in the next few months:

• HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook: Designed for a premium productivity experience, with features like a haptic trackpad, an integrated privacy screen, 5G and support for a wirelessly chargeable magnetic Stylus pen
• Acer Chromebook Spin 513: The first Chromebook to feature the MediaTek Kompanio 1380 processor, bringing together power and efficiency with up to 10 hours of battery life
• ASUS Chromebook Flip CX5: Made for productivity and entertainment with 12th Gen Intel Core processors, a 16-inch nano-edge display and Harmon-Kardon certified speakers
• Lenovo Flex 5 Chromebook: Built with productivity in mind and comes with powerful processors, a 1080p webcam and a stunning 14-inch 16:10 FHD display

Make edits with your voice

You might already use the Dictation feature, where you can dictate text anywhere you would normally type on your Chromebook — like in an email or on your browser. Now, you can also edit using your voice. Simply say “delete” to delete the last letter, or “move to next character” to adjust where your cursor is on the screen. Or, if you’re not sure what command to use, say “help” and your Chromebook will give you ideas. Once you’ve enabled “Dictation” in Settings, try it out by pressing the Everything Button + D.

Create and share your own GIF

Instead of digging through the internet to find that perfect GIF, you can now make your own right in the Chromebook Camera app. Simply open the Camera app, select “Video” and flip the toggle to “GIF.” Record a five-second video and when you’re done, it will automatically convert to an animated GIF. Share it through email and other apps on your Chromebook, or send it to your Android phone using Nearby Share.

Continue learning at home

Thanks to new Chromebook updates, students can easily review what they learned at school that day. With school accounts for Family Link, parents and guardians can add a Google for Education account for kids to access Google Classroom and other school resources on supervised Chromebooks at home. And with so many teachers sharing educational YouTube videos during class, parent supervision to YouTube is now available for Family Link users on Chromebooks. Plus, a new YouTube app for Chrome OS allows offline playback, so students can keep up with their lessons even without access to Wi-Fi at home or on long car rides and flights.

See more device insights

We’re also making it easier for IT administrators to keep their organization’s devices running smoothly.

Within Google Admin console, we’ve added a new report for a quick look at which devices need attention. Meanwhile, the new Chrome Management Telemetry API provides more detailed information about device performance so you can create your own personalized report. This complements the existing Chrome Policy API, which allows IT admins to quickly apply policies across a fleet of devices.

Go cloud-first and reduce e-waste

Chrome OS Flex is a new, free-to-download operating system that brings the speed, simplicity, manageability and proactive security of Chrome OS to PCs and Macs. Built for businesses and schools, it allows you to modernize PCs and Macs with a cloud-first operating system and reduces e-waste by extending the lifespan of older devices. Since early access availability in February, we’ve verified more than 100 devices to work with Chrome OS Flex and brought it into beta. Try it out and share your feedback.

We’ll be back to share more Chromebooks and features to help you personalize your laptop and work even better across multiple devices. And of course, we look forward to bringing you the next 100 Chrome OS updates.