Street View reaches new heights

Street View cars, Trekkers and trikes are always striving to unveil new informative and entertaining views of the world, making Google Maps more useful and comprehensive. In recent weeks, we have launched two exciting European projects — one in Switzerland, the other in Russia — which literally take the images to a new velocity and a new height!

StreetView Trekker climbs the Swiss Alps

Together with the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC) and the Swiss Tourism Board (MySwitzerland.com), we launched a contest called “Queen of the Alps.” High in the Swiss Alps, far from any road or other buildings, are picturesque huts used to spend a night by farmers and vacationers.

It often takes a full day hike to reach these out of the way huts. We ran online vote to find the favorite Swiss hut, promising to film the choice for Street View. The Swiss Alpine Club’s Lauteraarhütte-SAC in the canton of Berne (region “Grimselgebiet”) won. It took our Trekkers a five hour hike up the Grimsels Hospiz to capture this exciting imagery.

The interior of the winning alpine hut

In Russia, the site of our Street View shoot was much more accessible but just as exciting - the Winter Olympic venues in Sochi. Stroll around the Fischt stadium which hosted the opening and closing ceremonies. Walk on the Ice Palace "Iceberg" and visit the Olympic Village, where your favorite team stayed.

In particular, take a look at the new Formula 1 track in Sochi. It is located in the city’s Olympic Park and is the only Formula 1 track in Russia. From October 10-12, Russia will host its first World Championship race.

The new Sochi Formula 1 Track on StreetView

Before the event, we thought it would be cool for racing fans to test out the new track. The new Street View imagery allows anyone, anywhere to preview the route. Take a spin.

Posted by Marta Nowak-Przygodzka, Street View team

Inviting you to take a Romanesque journey

More than a millenium before the birth of the European Union, a style of architecture and art spread across the continent. It was called Romanesque and it emerged almost simultaneously in Spain, France, Italy, and Germany with sufficient unity to be considered Europe’s first common international art style.

Celebrating this achievement, our Cultural Institute just has launched launch a new, virtual exhibition, called “Origins of Romanesque: the Birth of Europe.” Curated by the Santa María la Real Foundation, it presents 26 iconic expressions of Romanesque beauty, explaining their social, political and cultural context. More than 100 guests attended the launch event in Madrid, featuring the president of the Foundation, José María Perez Peridis and the President of National Heritage as speakers.

Monestaries and abbeys led the way in spreading Romanesque constructions. In Spain, Romanesque cathedrals, churches, monasteries, cloisters and chapels mark the famed Camino de Santiago pilgrammage route.

Elsewhere in Europe, abbeys in Fulda, Lorsch, St. Gallen and Bobbio arose in the 11th century and became beacons for the new style, as did Europe’s first universities, beginning with Bologna in 1088.

Beside exploring Romanesque buildings, the new online exhibition includes drawings, photographs, films and video about Romanesque Europe.



We hope this present exhibition is only the first of a series, exploring other a series of exhibitions on life and art in Europe from Roman to modern times. Our goal is help everyone learn about and enjoy the beauties from the past.

Posted by Barbara Navarro, Director of Institutional Relations and Public Affairs Google

Music spreads across Europe with Google Play

Your music is supposed to be fun, but in reality it can be the exact opposite: a chore - moving files between computers, syncing across your phone and tablet, and lots and lots of wires. Google Play Music, an easier way to manage your music, offers a solution. It just has launched so you can listen to any song you want, whenever you want, on all of your devices. has just come to Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, Russia and Switzerland.

All Access coverage is now spread pretty much across the entire continent. A first group of nine European countries last month received the service.

All Access is the first service of its kind that lets you store 20,000 songs from your personal music collection in the cloud for free; purchase new music from all the major record labels and thousands of indies to grow your collection; or get an unlimited pass to a huge library of music on all your devices with All Access, our monthly music subscription service. It’s all stored in the cloud so you never have to worry about losing songs or moving them again. You can add a new favorite track to your collection while you’re on your computer, and it will be instantly available on your phone and tablet. And you can “pin” all of this content to make it available on your phone or tablet when you’re offline without a connection.

All Access lets you search for and listen to any song from our library of millions of tracks, wherever and whenever you want. You can create an ad-free, interactive radio station from any song or artist you love. Or you can browse recommendations from our expert music team and explore songs by genre. The “Listen Now” tab puts artists and radio stations we think you’ll like front and center so you can start listening the minute you open your library. You can try All Access for free for the first month and pay only a modest subscription service each month after that.

With this launch, Google Play moves one step closer to being your ultimate digital entertainment destination, where you can find, enjoy and share your favourite apps, games, books, movies, magazines and music on your Android phone or tablet. Good listening.

Posted by Posted by Sami Valkonen, Head of International Music Partnerships, Google Play

Street View arrives at CERN

At CERN, the European particle physics laboratory based in the suburbs of Geneva, some of the world’s best physicists and engineers are using advanced particle accelerators to help solve age old questions about the universe — What is it made of? How did it start?

We’re delighted that CERN opened its doors to Google Maps Street View allowing anyone, anywhere in the world to take a peek into its laboratories, control centers and its myriad underground tunnels housing cutting-edge experiments. Street View also lets scientists working on the experiments, who may be on the other side of the world, explore the equipment they're using.

This is the Large Hadron Collider. The LHC beauty experiment will shed light on why we live in a universe that appears to be composed almost entirely of matter, but no antimatter. Learn more here.

This is the the 7000-tonne ATLAS detector. From a cavern 100 metres below a small Swiss village, it’s probing for fundamental particles including the Higgs Boson.

ALICE is a heavy-ion detector on the Large Hadron Collider ring. It's designed to study the physics of strongly interacting matter at extreme energy densities, where a phase of matter called quark-gluon plasma forms.

The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) is a general-purpose detector at the Large Hadron Collider. It's designed to investigate a wide range of physics, including the search for the Higgs boson, extra dimensions, and particles that could make up dark matter.

For two full weeks back in 2011, members of our Street View team from Google’s Zurich office worked with our CERN partners to capture this incredible imagery. You can check out the above experiments, like ATLAS, ALICE, CMS, LHCb and the Large Hadron Collider tunnel in Google Maps, as well as collections of other Street View imagery from amazing sites around the world, on our Views site.

You can also learn more about CERN by following its Google+ page.

Posted by Pascale Milite, Google Street View operations

Expanding Google Business Photos in Europe

Want to show off appealing images of your business? We've just expanded Google Maps Business Photos program to six new European countries including: Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Russia, and Switzerland.

The Business Photos program enables merchants to create 360-degree, interactive tours of their establishments. This imagery allows potential customers to look inside and explore businesses before they go.

Bohema restaurant in Szczecin, Poland

Are you a business owner?
If you are a business owner in any of these locations, joining the program is easy. Simply hire a Trusted Photographer or Agency to take pictures. Using Street View technology, the photographer will create panoramic images from the photo shoot and upload them. These images will be available automatically to anyone who searches for your business on Google.com, Google Maps, Google Maps for Mobile and on your Google+ page or Places for Business listing. If a local photographer isn’t yet available in your neighborhood, let us know and we’ll do our best to find a photographer for you.

Fat Cow Restaurant in Singapore

Photographers can sign up...
Whether you’re a professional photographer or photography agency we’d love to have you on board! We are recruiting more Trusted Photographers and Agencies. Please visit our website for Trusted Photographers and Trusted Agencies to learn more and sign up.

Posted by Deborah Schenker, Program Manager, Google Business Photos

Training journalists to meet digital challenges

Much ink has been spilled about the challenges posed to the press by the digital age - but even more ought to be spilled about the opportunities of digital journalism. We are supporting Editors’ Lab Hackdays, a series of international workshops hosted by world-renowned newsrooms, to help fill this gap.

We recently hosted an Editors' Lab in Austria. German-language media groups from Austria, Germany and Switzerland were represented, including Zeit Online, Der Standard, Neue Zurcher Zeitung, ORF, Der Spiegel and Vorarlberg Online.



The theme of the Austrian Editors’ Lab was “Covering International Migration.” Participants were organised into teams and competed for a prize of EUR 5000 for the best new storytelling tools, applications and data journalism projects on international migration. “We want to encourage journalists, developers and designers to collaborate stories, even if they are all from different departments,” said Gerold Riedmann, CEO of Russmedia Digital and GEN Board Member.

Editors’ Lab Austria included presentations and classes. On the opening day, Simon Rogers, Data Blog Editor at the Guardian, gave a keynote address. Adam Thomas, Founder of Hack/Hackers Berlin and Head of Communications of SourceFabric, taught a course on data journalism.

After Austria, there will be further Editors’ Lab Hackdays in Cairo, New York City, New Delhi, and Amsterdam. All the winners receive an invitation to the final GEN News Hackathon at the GEN News Summit in Paris from June 19 to 21, 2013.

Posted by Wolfgang Fasching-Kapfenberger, Communications and Public Affairs Manager

The real Mountain View: on the piste with Street View

As the ski season approaches and you’re busy digging out your thermal underwear and snow boots, we hope to make your holiday preparations a little more enjoyable by adding some of the world’s favourite ski runs and resorts to Google Maps. Whether you’re looking to discover a piste you’ve never tried before, or just want to take in some of the breathtaking scenery to get in the mood for your trip, we hope you have fun exploring locations across Europe (including runs in Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Italy and Spain), Canada (including runs at Blue Mountain, Lake Louise and Fernie) and the US (including runs in Utah and Michigan).

For example, take a look at Sölden, a popular ski resort in the Ötztal valley of Tyrol, Austria. It’s not just tourists who flock there every year, but fans of professional skiing - Sölden regularly hosts the giant slalom competition as part of the Alpine World Cup in late October.


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Or virtually visit one of the iconic resorts in Switzerland like St. Moritz or Zermatt.


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Whenever we launch new imagery, our users start to develop creative and inspiring uses for the images. For example, Skiline.cc has integrated our snowy pictures into their web app which lets skiers virtually recap their day on the slopes.

Street View travels further north

Continuing the wintery theme, we’re introducing our first ever imagery in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago that lies about 400 miles north of mainland Europe - and the most northerly territory we’ve ever had on Street View. Svalbard was allegedly first discovered by Viking explorers in the 12th century, and now you can discover the beautiful tundras and harsh landscapes of the sparsely populated islands for yourself.

Svalbard is important today, hosting the Svalbard Satellite station, used by organisations like NASA and the ESA and the Global Seed Vault, a facility that provides spare samples of seeds found in gene banks all over the world.


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The ice roads

Finally, we’re also delighted to introduce some brand new imagery of the ice roads in Estonia, fashioned from the frozen waters of the Baltic Sea. Although these roads are only open when the weather permits and the ice is thick enough, we were lucky enough to capture the 10km ice road from Rohuküla to Sviby and the 3km stretch from Haapsalu to Noarootsi, among others.


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Posted by Ulf Spitzer, Street View Program Manager

Debating the future of Europe’s Single Market

“Europe wake up! We will only return to growth and prosperity if we complete the Single Market.” This motion will be debated tonight at 19:00 CET, live via Google+ Hangout on Air and on YouTube.

European Commissioner Michel Barnier will open the debate. Four EU experts - from the left and the right of the political spectrum and each with an axe to grind - will argue for and against the motion. Via Google+ Hangouts, the experts will cross-examine witnesses - including journalists, academics, economists and entrepreneurs from Ireland, Poland, Germany, France and Greece - to convince you they’re right. Veteran journalist and broadcaster Christine Ockrent will moderate.



The debate takes place just a few days before the EU marks the Single Market’s 20th anniversary. When it was launched in 1992, the Commission’s bold attempt to construct a seamless, truly tariff-free, pan-European market stimulated a wave of ‘Europtimism’. Now, with Europe facing challenging economic times, the Single Market’s importance to Europe is being re-examined.

You can have your say by voting on the motion - both before and after the debate - via youtube.com/versusdebates.

You can also join the discussion by adding your comments and questions to the +Versus Google+ page during the debate. The best questions, as decided by the debate organiser, Intelligence Squared, will be put to the panel, live on air.

Posted by Al Verney, Senior Communications Manager, Google

Exploring the Higgs Boson particle with CERN

Update: Watch the exciting hangout with CERN.



Has the recent discovery of the Higgs boson particle left you scratching your head trying to master the basics of the standard model and particle physics? Are these useful explanations sufficient?

If you are still confused - or just curious, then you’re in luck. This Thursday, the team behind CERN People, a documentary film project chronicling the cutting edge work being done to better understand our universe, will take part in a Google Hangout with the Guardian’s Ian Sample, author of "Massive: The Hunt for the God Particle". They’ll discuss their most recent findings, what’s next for the researchers at the Large Hadron Collider and answer your questions.

CERN People is a feature-length film project by the award-winning documentary-maker Films of Record. They’ll be releasing a full length film on the Higgs boson next year but you don’t have to wait to see their work. Their YouTube channel and Google+ page are full of interviews and explanations from CERN scientists.



The Hangout will be live at 5pm BST and available at on the CERN People G+ Page. Tune in and catch up on the exciting news about the origins of our universe and other head-scratching insights into our world.

Posted by Jon Steinberg, External Relations

A Computer Star Visits Zurich

For Google engineers, Donald Knuth is a true hero. The 74-year old Knuth, a professor emeritis at Stanford, is one of the pioneers of computer science, best known for his multi-volumed work “The Art of Computer Programming.” He is also recognized as the “father” of the field of analysis of algorithms, and of course, algorithms are central to much of what we do here at Google.



When the professor visited our offices in Zurich recently, more than 350 engineers packed the conference hall for a question and answer session. While many of the queries were technical, many were pertinent to all of us.

In Europe, Google has made a priority of promoting science education, so naturally a number of questions focused on this subject. How should a beginner programming get started? A bottom-up education is best, Knuth suggested, explaining that in his analogue era, some people became interested in science in order to build radios by themselves. In the Internet age, he said it was crucial to give aspiring programmers simple tools to learn coding from the ground up.

Another question was whether “programming is more of an art than a science?” Could programming progress in the same way as, say medieval Christians progressed the building of their soaring Gothic cathedrals from a try-and-see art to a mature engineering discipline?” It is only a matter of time that computing takes the same path, Knuth agreed. Many things start as art (even cathedral building), and systematic, scientific methods evolve. In this way, art feeds science and science nurtures art in a virtuous circle.

Knuth signed books that engineers had brought with them, inscribing each book with the message suggested by each engineer. One engineer brought their copy of “The Art of Computing Programming” in Russian to be signed. Before leaving, we presented him with a plaque showing a fragment of the code describing the Google Search page including “I’m feeling lucky!” We felt the same way about his visit.

Posted by David Harper, Head University Relations, Europe, Middle East and Africa