Researchers at Google have enormous potential to impact the experience of Google users, which means it’s of enormous importance for us to conduct Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. Grounded in user behavior understanding and real-use iteration, Google’s HCI researchers invent, design, build and trial real-scale interactive systems in the real world, often exploring areas where products and features may not yet exist. With this in mind, every year we participate in CHI: the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, the premier international conference on HCI research. As far as I know, it is the second largest ACM conference with nearly 3,000 attendees, and one of the top 10 research conferences that Google contributes to, in terms of technical content. I’m proud to be a Technical Program Co-Chair for CHI 2012, which will be held in Austin, TX from May 5 to May 10.

There are now a wide variety of HCI research activities at Google. First, we have a sizable user experience organization that focuses on design, user research and the critical insight needed by many product development organizations within the company. Second, we’ve built up a group of research scientists inside of Research at Google who work on projects involving gesture and touch interaction, activity- and context-aware recommendation, mobile input methods and social computing research.

Between attending talks and presenting papers of my own, I look forward to seeing many other Googlers show off their research in the world of HCI at CHI 2012. More than 15 Googlers are actively contributing to the conversations happening at the event: sitting on panels, walking attendees through submitted papers and case studies, teaching workshops and offering demos. For example:


As in previous years, we’ll also have a booth in the Exhibit Hall at CHI, where Googlers from all over the globe will be available to chat about their experiences solving interesting user research and design challenges. Finally, in keeping with Austin’s BBQ culture, we look forward to welcoming CHI attendees to head outdoors and join us in our backyard BBQ-themed booth where Googlers will also be talking about some of the hot-off-the-grill innovations that have influenced our products. Be sure to stop by and say hello!

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  1. Thanks for reading—please follow us on other channels

     Posted by Lisa McCracken, on behalf of the Technical Programs Editorial Board

     Thanks to everyone who has been a loyal reader of this blog over the last two years. After some consideration, we recognize that we're not generating enough content here to warrant your time, so we won't be posting here any longer. We encourage you to visit the following blogs and Google+ pages for ongoing news, announcements and summaries of Google’s technical outreach programs:


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  2. By Anthony F. Voellm (aka Tony the @p3rfguy / G+) and Emily Bedont

    On Wednesday, October 24th, while sitting under the Solar System, 30 software engineers from the Greater Seattle area came together at Google Kirkland to partake in the first ever Test Edition of Ship Wars. Ship Wars was created by two Google Waterloo engineers, Garret Kelly and Aaron Kemp, as a 20% project. Yes, 20% time does exist at Google!  The object of the game is to code a spaceship that will outperform all others in a virtual universe - algorithm vs algorithm. 

    The Kirkland event marked the 7th iteration of the program which was also recently done in NYC. Kirkland however was the first time that the game had been customized to encourage exploratory testing. In the case of "Ship Wars the Test Edition," we planted 4 bugs that the engineering participants were awarded for finding. Well, we ran out of prizes and were quickly reminded that when you put a lot of testing minded people in a room, many bugs will be unveiled! One of the best unveiled bugs was not one of the four planted in the simulator. When turning your ship 90 degrees, the ship actually turned -90 degrees. Oops! 


    Participants were encouraged to test their spaceship built on their own machine or a Google Chromebook. While the coding was done in the browser, the simulator and web server were run on Google Compute Engine. Throughout the 90 minutes, people challenged other participants to duels. Head-to-head battles took place on Chromebooks at the front of the room. There were many accolades called out but in the end, there could only be one champion who would walk away with a brand spankin’ new Nexus7. Check out our video of the evening’s activities. 


     Sounds fun, huh? We sure hope our participants, including our first place winner shown receiving the Nexus 7 from Garret, enjoyed the evening! Beyond the battles, our guests were introduced to the revived Google Testing Blog, heard firsthand that GTAC will be back in 2013, learned about testing at Google, and interacted with Googlers in a "Googley" environment. Achievement unlocked. 
    Cross posted on the Google Testing Blog.






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  3. September 15 marked the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month and the start of our third year celebrating the Hispanic community through events and community outreach initiatives. Googlers from our Corporate Social Responsibility Team, Diversity & Inclusion Team, Engineering Industry Team, the Hispanic Googler Network (HGN), and our Community Partners worked together to host 20+ events focused on this year’s theme of Latinos in Technology.

    We kicked things off at the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) National Conference, where two members from our Google Accelerate team worked one-on-one with business owners during matchmaking sessions to consult on the best use of Google tools for their enterprises. Googler Eliana Murillo spoke on a panel titled “Beyond Social Media: The Potential of Technology & the Internet in a Global Economy,” where she shared how tools like Google Analytics, YouTube and Google for Nonprofits can be useful for businesses.

    In early October, we ran a Hispanic Heritage Month 2012 Hangout on Air on the Life at Google page with the Latino Community Foundation (LCF). Raquel Donoso (CEO of LCF) and Googlers Hector Mujica (HGN member) and myself shared the history of the partnership and what our respective goals are. They also talked about the Family Health Day at Google & Olympic Games event, which we held at our Mountain View, Calif. headquarters that same week. Health is a pressing issue (PDF) in the Hispanic community; at this event, part of the Binational Health Week, we encouraged guests to have healthier lifestyles by teaching them some easy exercises, how to be active and eat healthy. More than 380+ community members and 50+ Googlers attended.

    Last week we wrapped up a series of networking events in partnership with the Society of Hispanic Engineers (SHPE), where more than 400+ technical professionals came to our Seattle, Cambridge, Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin, New York, and Mountain View Offices to network and learn about how Google is supporting the local hispanic technical community.



    Finally, today the Hispanic Googler Network is hosting the Bay Area Latino Employee Resource Group (ERG) Networking Reception in Mountain View. The Honorable Aida Alvarez, Chair of the Latino Community Foundation of the Bay Area, will speak to 300+ guests from local Hispanic ERGs in the Bay Area about what LCF is doing to build a better future for Latino children, youth and families in the Hispanic community.

    Though the month officially comes to an end today, we’ll continue to support the Hispanic community as a lead sponsor in the LATISM '12 conference, taking place in two weeks. LATISM ‘12 connects Latinos in social media, technology, education, business and health fields to increase their online footprint through the web and Google's tools for small businesses and communities. We’re also participating in the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Conference and will soon open up applications for our Hispanic College Fund Google scholarship.

    We’ve had a great time celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, and are already looking forward to next year’s events. We invite you to view the recaps, photos and hangouts on our Life at Google page on Google+ and to visit our Diversity & Inclusion site where you can see more of what we do.

    Posted by Sylvia Bonilla Zizumbo, Hispanic Googler Network Chair and Strategic Partnerships Lead
     
    (cross posted on the Official Google Blog)
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  4. Michel Benard, University Relations Manager

    Last week we held our fifth Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Faculty Summit in London, bringing together 94 of EMEA’s foremost computer science academics from 65 universities representing 25 countries, together with more than 60 Googlers.

    This year’s jam-packed agenda included a welcome reception at the Science Museum (plus a tour of the special exhibition: “Codebreaker - Alan Turing’s life and legacy”), a keynote on “Research at Google” by Alfred Spector, Vice President of Research and Special Initiatives and a welcome address by Nelson Mattos, Vice President of Engineering and Products in EMEA, covering Google’s engineering activity and recent innovations in the region.

    The Faculty Summit is a chance for us to meet with academics in Computer Science and other areas to discuss the latest exciting developments in research and education, and to explore ways in which we can collaborate via our our University Relations programs.

    The two and a half day program consisted of tech talks, break out sessions, a panel on online education, and demos. The program covered a variety of computer science topics including Infrastructure, Cloud Computing Applications, Information Retrieval, Machine Translation, Audio/Video, Machine Learning, User Interface, e-Commerce, Digital Humanities, Social Media, and Privacy. For example, Ed H. Chi summarized how researchers use data analysis to understand the ways users share content with their audiences using the Circle feature in Google+. Jens Riegelsberger summarized how UI design and user experience research is essential to creating a seamless experience on Google Maps. John Wilkes discussed some of the research challenges - and opportunities - associated with building, managing, and using computer systems at massive scale. Breakout sessions ranged from technical follow-ups on the talk topics to discussing ways to increase the presence of women in computer science.

    We also held one-on-one sessions where academics and Googlers could meet privately and discuss topics of personal interest, such as how to develop a compelling research award proposal, how to apply for a sabbatical at Google or how to gain Google support for a conference in a particular research area.

    The Summit provides a great opportunity to build and strengthen research and academic collaborations. Our hope is to drive research and education forward by fostering mutually beneficial relationships with our academic colleagues and their universities.

    Cross-posted with Google's Research Blog
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  5. Posted by Aaron Kemp, Software Engineer

    Eight months after its inception in the Google Waterloo Office, Ships Wars has reached the Silicon Valley.  On Thursday, September 13th, Google San Francisco and the Wallet team welcomed 25 local programmers to show off their skills as they coded their own spacecraft to do battle in a virtual universe.

    After a brief explanation of the rules, participants, nourished by a bevy of snacks and beverages, coded for 1-1/2 hours, using test runs and their on-the-fly problem-solving skills to control the direction and speed of their ships before unleashing them for head-to-head battle in final competitions.  The evening ended with a tour of the Google office as thousands of battles ensued.  After replays of the worthiest battles, results were displayed and prizes, including a Xoom tablet, were given to the top three winners of the most battles.  Check out a few more photos from this exciting event.

    Participants hard at work gearing up for battle

    Since the inaugural event last January, Ship Wars has been taken on the road to four total locations: Waterloo, Pittsburgh, Mountain View and now San Francisco.  The game has moved entirely to the cloud and has been played by professional and student audiences alike.  Future battles are confirmed, focusing on Front End Engineers in Google’s New York office on October 9th and on Test Engineers in our Kirkland office on October 24th.

    Interested in having a Ship War strike near you?  Contact the Google Events Team to suggest a battle zone or to learn more about other Google events in your area.

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  6. Posted by Kabita Komal and Amy Yeung, University Programs Team
    This past July, our Engineering University Programs team had the pleasure of hosting a unique new organization known as Girls Who Code (GWC) in the Google New York office. GWC is an organization working to educate, inspire and equip 13- to 17-year old girls with the skills and resources to pursue opportunities in technology and engineering. With the help of educators, engineers, and entrepreneurs, GWC has developed a new model for computer science (CS) education, pairing learning and mentorship led by the industry’s top female developers and entrepreneurs. GWC’s day at Google was part of an eight-week program for 20 high-school-age girls intended to teach them how to build websites and mobile apps, and even start their own companies.

     On the day of the event, GWC attendees joined members of the Google Women in Engineering (GWE) group along with several people from the University Programs team for an office tour, lunch in one of the cafes, a Q&A session with GWE career panelists, networking, and a discussion of the many technical career opportunities at Google. The Q&A session in particular highlighted the possibilities enabled by a career in technology. It also revealed that many of the GWE participants pursued CS or engineering because they enjoyed the experience of building something and seeing tangible results--Amy Schendel (Software Engineer) was influenced by her experience building a robot in her high school robotics club; Adriana Alltari (Systems Administrator, Corporate Engineering) was inspired by building a computer. The career panel was then broken down into smaller networking sessions and the conversations really came alive. Some of the girls inquired about opportunities at Google while in High School and the Computer Science Summer Institute (CSSI) program was mentioned.

    GWC’s visit to Google showed that there are driven young women who aspire to pursue CS and engineering, and how access to a network of mentors can strengthen their interest and align them for success. On August 30, 2012, Girls Who Code wrapped up their inaugural eight-week program with a graduation ceremony and demo presentation that showcased the valuable technical experience the girls gained in addition to their personal growth.

    The evening commenced with speeches from key individuals such as Beth Comstock, Chief Marketing Officer of General Electric, and the founder of GWC, Reshma Saujani. These speeches had the common thread of excitement over the program exceeding all expectations and enthusiasm surrounding the program’s growth potential. One of the girls spoke directly to the success of the program explaining that prior to her GWC experience, she had no interest in or knowledge about CS. Upon graduating, she announced her desire to study CS in hopes of being part of the next generation of tech professionals.

    Demo presentations were next on the evening’s schedule. GWC participants were broken into groups of 2-3 and created projects that not only exemplified their newly acquired working knowledge of CS, but expressed their creativity. For example, two girls created the app “Mood Food,” in which users can find restaurants around them that satisfy a specific food craving. They explained that though this app is similar to Yelp.com, they believe their version is more user-friendly.

    Today, just 3.6% of Fortune 500 companies are led by women, and less than 10% of venture capital-backed companies have female founders. Several technology companies, Google included, have joined the movement to close this gender gap, and GWC is testament to what can be accomplished through education, support, and access to the right resources. We look forward to seeing what the future holds for the GWC graduates and hope to see the program expand to encourage and empower more women as they pursue careers in technology.

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  7. Posted by Dan Russell, Uber Tech Lead, Search Quality & User Happiness

    If you missed Power Searching with Google a few months ago or were unable to complete the course the first time around, now’s your chance to sign up again for our free online course that aims to empower our users with the tools and knowledge to find what they’re looking for more quickly and easily.

    The community-based course features six 50-minute classes along with interactive activities and the opportunity to hear from search experts and Googlers about how search works. Beginning September 24, you can take the classes over a two-week period, share what you learn with other students in a community forum, and complete the course assessments to earn a certificate of completion.

    During the course’s first run in July, people told us how they not only liked learning about new features and more efficient ways to use Google, but they also enjoyed sharing tips and learning from one another through the forums and Hangouts. Ninety-six percent of people who completed the course also said they liked the format and would be interested in taking similar courses, so we plan to offer a suite of upcoming courses in the coming months, including Advanced Power Searching.

    Stay tuned for further announcements on those upcoming courses, and don’t forget to register now for Power Searching with Google. You’ll learn about things like how to search by color, image, and time and how to solve harder trivia questions like our A Google a Day questions. We’ll see you when we start up in two weeks!

    (cross-posted on the Research Blog)
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  8. Posted by Peter Norvig, Director of Research

    On July 26th, Google's 2012 Faculty Summit hosted computer science professors from around the world for a chance to talk and hear about some of the work done by Google and by our faculty partners. One of the sessions was a panel on Online Education. Daphne Koller's presentation on "Education at Scale" describes how a talk about YouTube at the 2009 Google Faculty Summit was an early inspiration for her, as she was formulating her approach that led to the founding of Coursera. Koller started with the goal of allowing Stanford professors to have more time for meaningful interaction with their students, rather than just lecturing, and ended up with a model based on the flipped classroom, where students watch videos out of class, and then come together to discuss what they have learned. She then refined the flipped classroom to work when there is no classroom, when the interactions occur in online discussion forums rather than in person. She described some fascinating experiments that allow for more flexible types of questions (beyond multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank) by using peer grading of exercises.

    In my talk, I describe how I arrived at a similar approach but starting with a different motivation: I wanted a textbook that was more interactive and engaging than a static paper-based book, so I too incorporated short videos and frequent interactions for the Intro to AI class I taught with Sebastian Thrun.

    Finally, Bradley Horowitz, Vice President of Product Management for Google+ gave a talk describing the goals of Google+. It is not to build the largest social network; rather it is to understand our users better, so that we can serve them better, while respecting their privacy, and keeping each of their conversations within the appropriate circle of friends. This allows people to have more meaningful conversations, within a limited context, and turns out to be very appropriate to education.

    By bringing people together at events like the Faculty Summit, we hope to spark the conversations and ideas that will lead to the next breakthroughs, perhaps in online education, or perhaps in other fields. We'll find out a few years from now what ideas took root at this year's Summit.

    cross-posted on the Research Blog
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  9. Posted by Andrea Held, University Relations

    In the last 10 years, we’ve seen a major transition from stand-alone applications that run on desktop computers to applications running in the cloud. Unfortunately, many computer science students don’t have the opportunity to learn and work in the cloud due to a lack of resources in traditional undergrad programs. Without this access students are limited to the resources their school can provide.

    So today, we’re announcing a new award program: the Google App Engine Education Awards. We are excited because Google App Engine can teach students how to build sophisticated large-scale systems in the cloud without needing access to a large physical network.

    Google App Engine can be used to build mobile or social applications, traditional browser-based applications, or stand-alone web services that scale to millions of users with ease. The Google App Engine infrastructure and storage tools are useful for collecting and analyzing educational data, building a learning management system to organize courses, or implementing a teacher forum for exchanging ideas and practices. All of these adaptations of the Google App Engine platform will use the same infrastructure that powers Google.

    We invite teachers at universities across the United States to submit a proposal describing how to use Google App Engine for their course development, educational research or tools, or for student projects. Selected proposals will receive $1,000 in App Engine credits.

    If you teach at an accredited college, university or community college in the US, we encourage you to apply. You can submit a proposal by filling out this form. The application deadline is midnight PST August 31, 2012.

    Cross-posted on the Research Blog

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  10. Posted by Rahul Sukthankar, Research Scientist


    More than 1800 participants showed up to discuss their research at this year’s International Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR’12), held in Providence, RI last month. The main conference consisted of three eventful -- and exhausting -- days of talks and poster sessions, supplemented by an additional three days of tutorials and workshops.

    This year, I found the CVPR posters to be especially energizing: poster presenters were mobbed by huge crowds that prompted the authors to start early and give encore performances through breaks and into subsequent sessions. Live demos and videos on laptops and tablets were increasingly common and allowed the audience to get a closer look at the research.

    Here is a small sampling of papers (both oral and poster) that I particularly enjoyed:
    The best paper prize this year (sponsored by Google) was awarded to Y. Dai, H. Li, and M. He for their paper, “A Simple Prior-free Method for Non-Rigid Structure-from-Motion Factorization”; the best student paper award went to M. Hoai and F. De la Torre for their work on “Max-Margin Early Event Detectors”. 

    Research at Google was very active at CVPR '12: 

    For me, the best part of CVPR was talking with graduate students about their work: at the doctoral consortium, during poster sessions and at the Google booth (where interesting demos and swag drew large crowds).

    Since becoming a part of Research at Google last year, I’ve been particularly excited about the idea of training spatiotemporally localized object and action detectors from lots of video, with minimal human supervision -- a goal that seemed both technically and computationally infeasible until recently. It’s great to see that many in the CVPR community share my belief that we’re now ready to learn from large-scale video and we’ve decided to organize a AAAI Spring Symposium on this topic. 

    Next year’s CVPR will be held in Portland, OR. I look forward to seeing many of you there!

    M. Grundmann and V. Kwatra present the YouTube video stabilization demo

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