Korea’s POSCO launches “Smart Workplace” powered by Google Apps and Google Search

To contact us Click HERE
Editor's note: Today’s blog post is from POSCO (formerly Pohang Iron and Steel Company), a multinational steel-making company headquartered in Pohang, South Korea. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

For more than 40 years, POSCO has been a pillar of economic development in Korea. Now the fifth largest steel company in the world, our organization has seen dramatic growth and we are proud of our extraordinary productivity and ongoing innovation. While we are well-known in our community and throughout the world for our steel works, we are also committed to effectively managing, inspiring and growing our workforce. Without our employees, the steel and other products wouldn’t be possible.

Our POSPIA 3.0 Smart Workplace initiative is just one of ways we are ensuring that our employees are engaged, empowered and given every opportunity to succeed in the global business environment. Smart Workplace launched on December 10, 2012 with key partnerships from Google and other technology providers.

As a part of this initiative, we have invested in tools like the Google Search Appliance and Google Apps. Google Apps has made it possible for POSCO to offer the right blend of technology to facilitate better collaboration, productivity and efficiency in the workplace. With tools like Gmail, Calendar, Google+ Hangouts and shared docs on Google Drive, our employees are working together more frequently and with better results. We are no longer tied to the traditional top down approach to management. Instead, with Google Apps, our organization has more flexibility to work together at all levels within the company and collaborate easily and effectively across businesses and borders. We want the entire POSCO family of companies to benefit from this way of working together, and we plan to roll out Google Apps to our family companies in the future.

POSCO Smart Workplace launch December 10, 2012. POSCO employees moved to Google Apps and the revamped POSCO Enterprise Portal went online with the Google Search Appliance.
One of the most exciting benefits we have seen is around real time collaboration within teams using Calendar. Previously, coordination meant using manual spreadsheet or colored paper Post-It notes. Now, employees can not imagine living without the ability to visualize a day, week or month and easily coordinate schedules, meetings and teams.

The Google Search Appliance (GSA) has also helped productivity, letting employees find information and search through over 10 million documents. Before we implemented GSA, many of our office employees would have difficulty finding the right information. Now the search results are fast, and most importantly - relevant to what they are searching for.

POSCO is steeped in great tradition, but we also recognize the need to evolve both in how we run our business and how we engage the workforce that keeps our business running. Google Apps and GSA are helping us manage our technology evolution so that we can continue to innovate and provide the materials that make up the world’s infrastructure.

Update Jan 31: minor edits made to post.

From top dresses to last-minute surprises, Google Trends from the Oscars

To contact us Click HERE
As millions of people tuned in to watch the 85th Academy Awards, many also turned to the web to keep up with the action. Here's a look at the Oscar nominees and moments that captured the world's imagination and brought people to Google Search.

The award for “most-searched” nominee goes to...
We took a look at search interest in all of the Oscar nominees across categories. Here's a list of the most searched:


At the end of the show, Best Picture winner “Argo” held the #6 spot, followed by Ang Lee, Christoph Waltz, “Silver Linings Playbook” and Halle Berry.

The 10 most searched red carpet dresses
The red carpet is many people's favorite part of the show. While no Oscar is awarded for "best dress," we wanted to know which gowns caught people's attention this year. The results are in, and the winners are...


Beyond these top five, Brandi Glanville, Amanda Seyfried, Naomi Watts, Kate Hudson and Zoe Saldana took the next top spots.

The moments that caught our attention
This year's Oscars brought with it a number of unexpected moments that grabbed our attention. Early in the show, Seth MacFarlane was visited by William Shatner in full Captain Kirk regalia, come from the future to save Seth’s monologue; at 8:36pm ET, searches for [kirk] spiked to almost 1,500 per minute. Later in the show, “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Skyfall” tied for sound editing, and people flocked to the web with questions. Searches for [tie] spiked to more than 5,000 per minute, with many people wanting to know [has there ever been a tie in the oscars]. And in a final surprise, First Lady Michelle Obama introduced the Best Picture nominees and opened the winning envelope for “Argo.” Searches for [michelle obama] spiked to 4,500 per minute.

For more, check out Google Trends and visit our Oscars site
Before the ceremony started, we shared our “picks”—who would win if the Oscars were determined by search volume alone. Out of the six Google Search Picks, four actually won! Visit Google Trends to explore all the topics you're curious about. And if you want one more tug at the ol’ heartstrings, enjoy a look at the year’s top movies on our Oscars site.



Posted by Nemo Tamir, Software Engineer

Chrome's Giant Touch-Optimized Menu

To contact us Click HERE
Somewhere between Chrome 25 (beta) and Chrome 26 (dev), the browser's menu got bigger. It's now optimized for touch interfaces even if you're using a non-touch computer. I've checked the height of the menu and it's now 580 pixels, instead of 420 pixels. That's a 38% increase and it makes the interface more difficult to use for mouse users.


When you use Chrome's sync feature, the menu's height becomes 625 pixels. Here's how a recent Chromium build looks on my 1280x800 laptop and remember that most laptops sold right now have a 1366x768 resolution:


Chrome also changed the contextual menu:

Google Drive's File Previews

To contact us Click HERE
Google Drive has a new feature that lets you preview files using an interface borrowed from Google+. This feature is not restricted to photos and videos, it also works for Google Docs documents, presentations, spreadsheets, forms, drawings, Microsoft Office files, PDF, PostScript and XPS files and TrueType fonts.


It's interesting that Google Drive shows the new previews if you click a file that's not associated with a web application. For examples, the previews don't show up if you click a Google Docs document, so you need to right-click the file and select "Preview".


"When previewing a file, it's easy to flip through nearby files by clicking the arrows on the left and right sides of the preview window. This is a great way to scan through a group of photos you've stored in your Drive," explains Google. You can also use the left and right arrow keys to navigate to the other files and up/down arrow keys to scroll up/down in documents. While the previews don't let you edit documents, you can select text, zoom in or out, find text (Ctrl+F), print the documents or share them with other people.


The feature is currently rolled out, so you may not see it yet in your account. Check back later or sign in to a different Google account.

{ via Google Drive Blog }

Google's First Ultrabook

To contact us Click HERE
Chromebook Pixel is the first Chromebook designed by Google and the first premium Chromebook. Until now, Chromebooks used low-end CPUs, average displays and plastic chassis. Google decided to change all that and build "the best laptop possible" to inspire other manufacturers. It's like the first Nexus Chromebook.


But why is it called Pixel? It's the first Chromebook with a retina-like display, 3:2 aspect ratio and 2560x1700 resolution. Much like Apple's Retina MacBook Pro, Chromebook Pixel uses pixel doubling to make everything look sharp and crisp. The display has "the highest pixel density (239 pixels per inch) of any laptop screen on the market today" and it's a 12.85-inch IPS touchscreen with 400 nit brightness and 178° extra-wide viewing angles.


Pixel has an anodized aluminium body, glass touchpad, backlit keyboard, hidden vents, Intel i5 processor and 4GB of RAM. "The touchpad is made from etched glass, analyzed and honed using a laser microscope to ensure precise navigation. The Pixel also has powerful, full-range speakers for crisp sound, a 720p webcam for clear video, and a total of three microphones designed to cancel out surrounding noise," informs Google.

Google also includes 1TB of free Google Drive Storage for 3 years. You can also buy a special model with an integrated LTE modem for Verizon.

The Verge has some cool pictures. "There are subtle design touches throughout the machine that help add to the 'premium' feel that Google is going for. The fan vents out in the hinge, every edge is subtly bezeled to prevent sharp angles, the speakers are fairly loud despite being hidden underneath the keyboard, and Google even opted to not put labels next to the ports."

The downside is that Google's Chromebook is really expensive: $1300 (WiFi)/$1450 (WiFi+LTE). It's more expensive than Apple's MacBook Air and most ultrabooks. While it has a better display, Chrome OS is more limited than MacOS (or Windows) and it only became popular when Samsung and Acer started to offer $200-$250 Chromebooks. When you can buy tablets with high-resolution displays for $400 (Nexus 10) or $500 (iPad), the $1300 Chromebook Pixel feels out of place and overkill. After all, you can buy a Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10 and a Samsung Chromebook for less than $1200. An ARM device would've been a lot cheaper, but less powerful.

"The Pixel will be available for purchase starting today on Google Play in the U.S. and U.K., and soon on BestBuy.com. The WiFi version ($1,299 U.S. and £1,049 U.K.) will start shipping next week and the LTE version ($1,449) will ship in the U.S. in April. If you're interested in a hands-on experience, you can visit select Best Buy (U.S.) and Currys PC World (U.K.) store locations."

Now Google has a good reason to open its own physical stores.

{ via Google Blog }

Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana Sees an Opportunity with Google Apps

To contact us Click HERE
Posted by Jeff Ton, SVP of Corporate Connectivity & Chief Information Officer for Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana

Editor's Note: Our guest blogger this week is Jeff Ton, SVP of Corporate Connectivity & Chief Information Officer for Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana, based in Indianapolis. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Goodwill Industries’ mission is to give people an opportunity in life that they may not otherwise have, like a job or better education. As one of the larger Goodwill organizations, we at Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana aim to run as efficiently as possible to best serve our 3,000 employees spread across 29 countries and the greater Indiana community.

When I joined the company in 2010, we were running Microsoft® Exchange 2003 and we badly needed an upgrade. As a CIO, the last thing I want is to tell the executive staff we have to spend two months and thousands of dollars to upgrade our email system. We chose Google Apps because we wanted a cloud solution that gave us leaner infrastructure, better business capabilities, and security. We saved tens of thousands of dollars, and avoided future costs from server maintenance, upgrade costs and lost time dealing with email problems.

Since moving to Google Apps, we’ve changed how we communicate and collaborate with our 1,200 business users. Google Forms and Sheets in Google Drive have been powerful tools for us. Our Corporate Connectivity Committee – a cross-functional group spanning four different business areas – used a Google Form to collect research during a six-month tour of our 70 locations into a Google Sheet. They were able to analyze results and find the best ways to distribute information to employees and make them feel more included the company. This would’ve been a messy process before, compiling 70 different questionnaires. I also use Google Sites for my personal dashboard to collect, maintain, and organize data. I spent about four months trying to piece this together on our old platform, but it never worked. On Google Sites we had it working in about 20 minutes. It updates in real time so my monthly report is a 5-minute task instead of a month-long project.

Google+ Hangouts have also transformed the way our teams connect. Our Benefits Committee used Hangouts instead of traveling to attend in-person meetings about a new payroll system and benefits structure. Additionally, our recruiting team uses Hangouts for interviews – again, saving driving time without sacrificing the face-to-face relationships with candidates. I personally use Hangouts for my weekly meetings with my staff when I am working from home. Using video makes the meetings much more cohesive, and we can work simultaneously in shared Docs so we’re all on the same page.

As a CIO, the best part about moving to Google Apps is seeing the adoption happen organically – the first time a Google Doc was shared with me, it came from outside of IT. Google Apps has helped us immensely, allowing us to take our focus off of internal processes and problems and put it instead on those who really need it.

Chicago Public Schools get high marks by going Google

To contact us Click HERE
Posted by Lachlan Tidmarsh, CIO, Chicago Public Schools

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Lachlan Tidmarsh, Chief Information Officer for the Chicago Public Schools, the third largest school district in the United States. Chicago is one of many districts that have moved to Google Apps for Education. Join the Google team at FETC and BETT this week to learn more.


Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is a diverse learning community that encompasses 681 schools, including 472 elementary schools, 106 high schools and 96 charter schools. With over 40,000 teachers, administrators and support staff across the city working to improve the education of Chicago children, communication and collaboration are essential.

Technology can play a vital role in making the teaching and learning experience as effective and rewarding as possible. For years CPS relied on two different communication systems—Microsoft Outlook used by administrators and principals, and OpenText FirstClass used by our teachers. Even after federal subsidies, our cost to run these systems exceeded $2 million per year. Having two different systems was frustrating for users and remote access was clunky.

After deciding to move to a single consolidated system, we vetted our two final options—Google and Microsoft— with our teachers and administrators. The decision was overwhelmingly to go with Google Apps for Education. For one thing, many of our schools were already using Google Apps and were enthusiastic about the collaboration capabilities. From an executive management viewpoint, Google Apps would save the district millions of dollars each year. Who could argue with that?

Of course, we had to ensure that the applications were secure, that they met our functional requirements, and that our people were productive on day one. We engaged Google Apps partner SADA Systems to help with the migration and training, and set a goal of finishing before the start of the 2012 school year. Between March 28, when we signed the contract, and August 20, we migrated 270,000 administrators, teachers and students to Google Apps. It was easily the fastest and smoothest migration of this scale I have ever seen.

We had staffed up our help desk but had very low call volumes and little drama. The real key to this was strong communication from the get-go and well-planned training. We established “Google Heroes” in each school to lead the charge. Our “Heroes” were critical to ensuring we had at least one trained user in each school from day one. As a result, many of our teachers and principals knew what was coming and when. We also offered a variety of additional training options for faculty and staff, including online tutorials, blogs, and classroom-based instruction. In follow-up surveys of trainees, we received satisfaction levels of 80% and higher for both the training and the tools.

When school started in fall, many teachers immediately began sharing assignments with students through Google Drive. As the year progresses, they continue to find new ways to enhance the educational experience inside and outside the classroom using Google Apps. For example, some teachers create daily quizzes in Google Forms to determine if students have understood key concepts and adapt the next day’s lesson plan accordingly. In the case of a major weather event such as a snowstorm, we can use Google Apps to efficiently coordinate school operations and make sure students know where they can go to for safety.

For Chicago Public Schools, Google Apps is fundamentally transforming both educational and administrative processes for the better – all while saving us millions of dollars each year.

Chrome's Giant Touch-Optimized Menu

To contact us Click HERE
Somewhere between Chrome 25 (beta) and Chrome 26 (dev), the browser's menu got bigger. It's now optimized for touch interfaces even if you're using a non-touch computer. I've checked the height of the menu and it's now 580 pixels, instead of 420 pixels. That's a 38% increase and it makes the interface more difficult to use for mouse users.


When you use Chrome's sync feature, the menu's height becomes 625 pixels. Here's how a recent Chromium build looks on my 1280x800 laptop and remember that most laptops sold right now have a 1366x768 resolution:


Chrome also changed the contextual menu:

Google Drive's File Previews

To contact us Click HERE
Google Drive has a new feature that lets you preview files using an interface borrowed from Google+. This feature is not restricted to photos and videos, it also works for Google Docs documents, presentations, spreadsheets, forms, drawings, Microsoft Office files, PDF, PostScript and XPS files and TrueType fonts.


It's interesting that Google Drive shows the new previews if you click a file that's not associated with a web application. For examples, the previews don't show up if you click a Google Docs document, so you need to right-click the file and select "Preview".


"When previewing a file, it's easy to flip through nearby files by clicking the arrows on the left and right sides of the preview window. This is a great way to scan through a group of photos you've stored in your Drive," explains Google. You can also use the left and right arrow keys to navigate to the other files and up/down arrow keys to scroll up/down in documents. While the previews don't let you edit documents, you can select text, zoom in or out, find text (Ctrl+F), print the documents or share them with other people.


The feature is currently rolled out, so you may not see it yet in your account. Check back later or sign in to a different Google account.

{ via Google Drive Blog }

Google's First Ultrabook

To contact us Click HERE
Chromebook Pixel is the first Chromebook designed by Google and the first premium Chromebook. Until now, Chromebooks used low-end CPUs, average displays and plastic chassis. Google decided to change all that and build "the best laptop possible" to inspire other manufacturers. It's like the first Nexus Chromebook.


But why is it called Pixel? It's the first Chromebook with a retina-like display, 3:2 aspect ratio and 2560x1700 resolution. Much like Apple's Retina MacBook Pro, Chromebook Pixel uses pixel doubling to make everything look sharp and crisp. The display has "the highest pixel density (239 pixels per inch) of any laptop screen on the market today" and it's a 12.85-inch IPS touchscreen with 400 nit brightness and 178° extra-wide viewing angles.


Pixel has an anodized aluminium body, glass touchpad, backlit keyboard, hidden vents, Intel i5 processor and 4GB of RAM. "The touchpad is made from etched glass, analyzed and honed using a laser microscope to ensure precise navigation. The Pixel also has powerful, full-range speakers for crisp sound, a 720p webcam for clear video, and a total of three microphones designed to cancel out surrounding noise," informs Google.

Google also includes 1TB of free Google Drive Storage for 3 years. You can also buy a special model with an integrated LTE modem for Verizon.

The Verge has some cool pictures. "There are subtle design touches throughout the machine that help add to the 'premium' feel that Google is going for. The fan vents out in the hinge, every edge is subtly bezeled to prevent sharp angles, the speakers are fairly loud despite being hidden underneath the keyboard, and Google even opted to not put labels next to the ports."

The downside is that Google's Chromebook is really expensive: $1300 (WiFi)/$1450 (WiFi+LTE). It's more expensive than Apple's MacBook Air and most ultrabooks. While it has a better display, Chrome OS is more limited than MacOS (or Windows) and it only became popular when Samsung and Acer started to offer $200-$250 Chromebooks. When you can buy tablets with high-resolution displays for $400 (Nexus 10) or $500 (iPad), the $1300 Chromebook Pixel feels out of place and overkill. After all, you can buy a Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10 and a Samsung Chromebook for less than $1200. An ARM device would've been a lot cheaper, but less powerful.

"The Pixel will be available for purchase starting today on Google Play in the U.S. and U.K., and soon on BestBuy.com. The WiFi version ($1,299 U.S. and £1,049 U.K.) will start shipping next week and the LTE version ($1,449) will ship in the U.S. in April. If you're interested in a hands-on experience, you can visit select Best Buy (U.S.) and Currys PC World (U.K.) store locations."

Now Google has a good reason to open its own physical stores.

{ via Google Blog }

Google Forms, Refreshed

To contact us Click HERE
Posted by: Nick Santos, Software Engineer

(Cross-posted on the Google Drive blog.)

With Google Drive, you can do more than just create, store, and share stuff. A variety of apps can help with everything from editing spreadsheets to signing documents electronically.

Forms let you easily create questionnaires and automatically collect responses in a spreadsheet. Today a new version launches, rebuilt to bring you a faster, cleaner, and more collaborative experience.

Now with collaboration 
Create a form faster than ever. Just as with Docs, Sheets and Slides, you can now collaborate with others in real-time. If you need to work with two colleagues on a survey, all three of you can work on the same form simultaneously and even have a group chat on the side, without leaving the form.


Better editing 
Even if you’re working solo, some new changes will make creating and editing forms easier. All your changes are auto-saved and you can quickly undo/redo edits. Improved copy-and-paste will let you copy a list of bullets from the web or multiple rows of text from a spreadsheet; then, when you paste into a form, each line will be appear as an individual answer. And you can use keyboard shortcuts to get things done more quickly.


Some things unchanged 
With the new Forms editor, you can continue using all the features you’re already familiar with:

• Scale: Whether you’re collecting responses from ten friends for a baby shower or ten thousand attendees at a conference, you can count on Forms to reliably collect data for any number of responses. 
• Analyzing: See the responses you’ve received right in Google Forms or collect them neatly in Google Sheets. And you can now download a .csv file for more detailed analysis and reporting. 
• Sharing: If you share a form directly in Google+, anyone in your circles can respond without leaving their stream. Or if you send a form via email, respondents can submit their answers right from Gmail.

This update to Forms will be rolling out to Rapid Release over the next few days, and to Scheduled Release in the coming weeks. You can create forms directly from Google Sheets or Drive, or install the Chrome Web App for easy access from your browser. Also check the Google Drive +page all week for tips and tricks.

A Look Back at 2012: The Expansion of Learning on the Web

To contact us Click HERE
Posted by Jaime Casap, Global Education Evangelist at Google

2012 was a year of opening doors to learning on the web for more and more students each day. With the web, students and teachers are using new technology and devices to collaborate with each other in class, from home, and around the world. We want Google in Education to help open more doors and we’re pleased to announce there are now 2,000 schools using Chromebooks for Education–twice as many as 3 months ago. And with several Chrome devices available today, there is a device for any school, any student, anywhere.

The most recent schools to join the fray include: Transylvania County Schools in rural North Carolina deploying 900 devices; top Catholic prep school St.Thomas Aquinas High School in Florida going one-to-one with 2,200 devices; and urban charter network Rocketship Education in the Bay Area of California using 1,100 Chromebooks as part of their blending learning approach. The Google Apps for Education community also continues to grow, with Chicago Public Schools bringing 270,000 students, teachers and administrators into the cloud.

Connor and Meg at Spring Valley High School are two of the over 14,000 students in Richland School District Two in South Carolina who are now using Chromebooks for 1:1 learning.
This week I had the opportunity to speak with many in the global education community as I traveled from the FETC conference in Orlando, Florida to the BETT Show in London, U.K. I’d like to share some thoughts from my journey.

Looking back in Florida one year later with Chromebooks for Education
This week at the FETC 2013 conference, we hosted a panel where school leaders reflected on this past year. In January 2012 some of the first districts announced that they were moving “one to one” with Chromebooks and that they were choosing the web as their learning platform. On the panel Tuesday, these educators talked about the impact the web has had in their schools: enabling tech support internships, allowing homebound students to collaborate remotely, and teaching students to become digital leaders. The results of the hard work of educators and students shows clearly in the impact at Leyden and the changes at Richland Two one year later.

Learning with the web in London
Yesterday morning I landed at London’s Gatwick airport, straight from the redeye and into the exhibition hall of the world’s largest education technology conference, BETT. Steve Philp, one of the first educators to use Chromebooks in the UK, shared his views on his year with Chromebooks and the web. Bruno Reddy of King Soloman Academy in London also spoke about how the web has impacted his classroom and how it will help his students in the long term:

"In an increasingly digital age, it’s great to see that the students I teach have been able to harness these skills in such a way, and it puts them in good stead for the years ahead.”

On Saturday, I fly out of London, and onwards to the next educator event with even more of the Google in Education community. You can find upcoming live and virtual events on the calendar page of our website. I hope to see you soon – in person or on the web.

Preview files in Google Drive

To contact us Click HERE
Posted by Ian Kilpatrick, Google Drive Engineer

(Cross-posted on the Google Drive Blog.)

It may sound obvious, but sometimes the best way to find something is to start looking. Beginning today, Google Drive will let you quickly preview more than 30 file types and quickly flip between files until you find the one you want.

You’ll see the new preview automatically if you open a photo, video, or PDF. To see a preview of a Google document, right-click on the file name and select “preview.” Once the preview window is open, you can click on the arrows on either side to flip to other files. And right from within the preview, you can watch video files or scroll through multi-page documents.


You can select and copy text from the preview -- even for a PDF or Microsoft Word document -- or use the zoom buttons to see a file in more detail. Each file preview also gives you one-click access to share, download, print or open a file for editing.


This feature will roll out over the next few days to Rapid Release customers.

Australia goes back to school with Google Apps for Education

To contact us Click HERE
Posted by Suan Yeo, Head of Google Education, Asia-Pacific

With a new academic year comes a new way of learning.
   Increasingly primary, secondary, and university students and faculty are using Google Apps for Education, a free suite of productivity tools designed to help people work together better. This also include three top-tier universities in Australia who are going back to school this year with Google Apps. The universities of Griffith, Macquarie and Monash join the community of thousands of institutions worldwide using Google Apps for Education to enhance their students’ learning and to increase organizational efficiency. This community includes 72 of the top 100 schools in the USA and 20 million students and teachers worldwide.

Griffith University is a leading research university with a strong international focus spread over 5 campuses. They were looking for an easy-to-use communication and collaboration platform that offered more storage capacity and a better user interface, regardless of access device or location.

Monash University has a presence in Malaysia, South Africa, India, Italy and China, and benefits from being able to streamline communication among its dispersed students and staff.

“How could you not consider Google Apps in the world we are in today? It, to me, is the best productivity tool you could imagine, in the most intuitive fashion.” 
—Adam Shoemaker, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education), Monash University


Macquarie University was in fact the first university in Australia, and amongst the first in the world, to offer Gmail to their students, setting up 68,000 accounts back in 2007. Since then, they have switched on more and more of the suite’s features, and in 2012 even became the first Australian university to map its campus 3 dimensionally in Google Earth.
  Several students from each of these universities have also been appointed as Google Student Ambassadors this year, and will join students from 25 other universities this week in our Sydney office. They will learn first-hand how Google Apps for Education can help to uncover a new way of learning, and help others on their campuses to use technology for good.

For more information about Google Apps for Education, and to sign up today, visit www.google.com/apps/edu. Or say hello in person June 3-5 at EduTECH in Brisbane, Australia.

Google Cloud Platform introduces new support packages

To contact us Click HERE
Posted by Brett McCully, Google Cloud Platform Team

Support is as important as product features when choosing a platform for your applications. And let’s face it, sometimes we all need a bit of help. No matter which Google Cloud Platform services you are using—App Engine, Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL, BigQuery, etc.—or what time of day, you should be able to get the answers you need. While you can go to Stack Overflow or Google Groups, we realize some of you may need 24x7 coverage, phone support or direct access to a Technical Account Manager team.

To meet your support requirements, we’re introducing a comprehensive collection of support packages for services on Google Cloud Platform, so you can decide what level best fits your needs:

• Bronze: All customers get access to online documentation, community forums, and billing support. (Free) 
• Silver: In addition to Bronze, you can email our support team for questions related to product functionality, best practices, and service errors. ($150/month) 
• Gold: In addition to Silver, you'll receive 24x7 phone support and consultation on application development, best practices or architecture for your specific use case. (Starts at $400/month) 
• Platinum: The most comprehensive and personalized support. In addition to Gold, you’ll get direct access to a Technical Account Manager team. (Contact Sales for more information)

Sign up or click here to find out more information about the new Google Cloud Platform support options.

New Google Weather OneBox for Desktop

To contact us Click HERE
Google updated the weather OneBox from the desktop search interface to match the tablet interface. The new OneBox is huge, it includes more information and it's more interactive. While the old OneBox only displayed the weather forecast for 4 days, the new one has an hourly and an 8-day forecast for temperature, precipitation and wind.


Here's the old interface (I've managed to take this screenshot by pretending I'm using IE7 and changing the user-agent):



It's interesting that many search features are first added to the mobile/tablet interface and a few months later to the desktop UI.

{ Thanks, Mikhail. }

Google's First Ultrabook

To contact us Click HERE
Chromebook Pixel is the first Chromebook designed by Google and the first premium Chromebook. Until now, Chromebooks used low-end CPUs, average displays and plastic chassis. Google decided to change all that and build "the best laptop possible" to inspire other manufacturers. It's like the first Nexus Chromebook.


But why is it called Pixel? It's the first Chromebook with a retina-like display, 3:2 aspect ratio and 2560x1700 resolution. Much like Apple's Retina MacBook Pro, Chromebook Pixel uses pixel doubling to make everything look sharp and crisp. The display has "the highest pixel density (239 pixels per inch) of any laptop screen on the market today" and it's a 12.85-inch IPS touchscreen with 400 nit brightness and 178° extra-wide viewing angles.


Pixel has an anodized aluminium body, glass touchpad, backlit keyboard, hidden vents, Intel i5 processor and 4GB of RAM. "The touchpad is made from etched glass, analyzed and honed using a laser microscope to ensure precise navigation. The Pixel also has powerful, full-range speakers for crisp sound, a 720p webcam for clear video, and a total of three microphones designed to cancel out surrounding noise," informs Google.

Google also includes 1TB of free Google Drive Storage for 3 years. You can also buy a special model with an integrated LTE modem for Verizon.

The Verge has some cool pictures. "There are subtle design touches throughout the machine that help add to the 'premium' feel that Google is going for. The fan vents out in the hinge, every edge is subtly bezeled to prevent sharp angles, the speakers are fairly loud despite being hidden underneath the keyboard, and Google even opted to not put labels next to the ports."

The downside is that Google's Chromebook is really expensive: $1300 (WiFi)/$1450 (WiFi+LTE). It's more expensive than Apple's MacBook Air and most ultrabooks. While it has a better display, Chrome OS is more limited than MacOS (or Windows) and it only became popular when Samsung and Acer started to offer $200-$250 Chromebooks. When you can buy tablets with high-resolution displays for $400 (Nexus 10) or $500 (iPad), the $1300 Chromebook Pixel feels out of place and overkill. After all, you can buy a Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10 and a Samsung Chromebook for less than $1200. An ARM device would've been a lot cheaper, but less powerful.

"The Pixel will be available for purchase starting today on Google Play in the U.S. and U.K., and soon on BestBuy.com. The WiFi version ($1,299 U.S. and £1,049 U.K.) will start shipping next week and the LTE version ($1,449) will ship in the U.S. in April. If you're interested in a hands-on experience, you can visit select Best Buy (U.S.) and Currys PC World (U.K.) store locations."

Now Google has a good reason to open its own physical stores.

{ via Google Blog }

Scheduled Release track features update 2/21/13

To contact us Click HERE

Drive: The “Create” menu in Google Drive has a new look. This change allows for easier access to Drive apps and third party apps. To create a new file from a template, open the appropriate editor (Docs, Sheets or Slides) and click on File > New > From template. This functionality has been removed from the new “Create” menu.

The following features are intended for release to these domains on February 26th:
No new features are launching next week.

Release track:
Scheduled

Editions included:
Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and Education


whatsnew.googleapps.com
Get these product update alerts by email
Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates

HTML5 support for Google Drive videos

To contact us Click HERE
Videos stored in Google Drive are now available in HTML5. Videos will be served in HTML5 if Flash support is not available in the browser. This change allows users to play videos on their mobile phones without Flash support.

Editions included
Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and Education

For more information:
http://support.google.com/drive/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2423694

whatsnew.googleapps.com
Get these product update alerts by email
Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates

Preview files in Google Drive

To contact us Click HERE
Users can now preview more than 30 file types in Google Drive. They can flip through files to find the one they want as well as share, download, print or edit them with one click.

Editions included
Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and Education

Release track
Rapid release

For more information
http://googledrive.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/preview-files-in-google-drive.html

whatsnew.googleapps.com
Get these product update alerts by email
Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates

Improved search experience for customers and employees – Österreichische Post AG opts for Google Search Appliance

To contact us Click HERE
Posted by Peter Hutterer, Content Manager, Österreichische Post AG

Editor's note: Our guest blogger this week is Peter Hutterer, Content Manager at Österreichische Post AG, Austria’s leading logistics and postal service provider.

Österreichische Post AG has been the leading logistics and postal service provider in Austria since 1999. More than eight million Austrians trust us every day to deliver their letters, advertising materials and packages securely and quickly. As a stock market listed company, we make an important contribution towards maintaining and securing the communication and logistics infrastructure in Austria. We always look to the latest technologies to further enhance the quality of our service, and are convinced that good service is only possible if our customers, employees and partners can find what they are looking for quickly and easily.

That is why we chose to implement the Google Search Appliance 7.0. The recently launched project – first implementing GSA for our website and online shop pages and later using it for our intranet – is expected to be completed by mid-2013. Initially, 9,000 employees in our stores across Austria will use the GSA, which will allow them to locate internal information and documents, share these with the entire workforce and improve our internal networking.

The personalized intranet search experience enabled by the GSA is another key factor that played a role in the decision to go with Google’s Enterprise Search solution. With the GSA, we can also search within the organisation for experts in different subject areas, and thus tap into the “wisdom of many” across all our locations to execute our work. In addition, while up to now we've been using various search engines within the company, the move to one and intuitive GSA will lower our IT spend.

However, GSA doesn’t just give our employees a fast and easy search experience that yields the most relevant results; our customers also benefit from our implementation of the Google search solution. They are used to finding everything they need extremely fast by searching on Google.at. And now the GSA will give them the same experience on our website, making it easier to navigate the jungle of our diverse service portfolio, including information about package rates, mail forwarding services, e-letters, store locations and more. The GSA helps people find the right information faster and delivers the most relevant results for their queries. What’s more, with the GSA, our IT staff can better analyze customer search queries, which, in turn, lets them design the website to be more user-friendly. But that’s not the end of it: in the future, we will use GSA to better calibrate our service offers to make sure we meet and exceed the needs of our customers.

See what other businesses that use the Google Search Appliance have to say.

Oscar fans: we’ve got you covered

To contact us Click HERE
We all love a night at the movies. Whether it’s romance, horror, or action adventure, there's no better way to step into another world—even if just for a couple of hours. And for the past 85 years, millions of people throughout the world have gathered around their TVs to watch the Oscars and celebrate the people who make these moments possible.

For the first time, we've created a one-stop shop to help you get more of what you love about the Oscars.

First, if you missed any of the nominees in the theaters, don’t fret! We’ve put together a Year in Review video of 2012’s top movies. Take a whirlwind tour through your favorite moments, or see what you may have missed:



Want to explore more about the nominees? You can:

• Click through our movie and celebrity knowledge graphs to learn more about your favorite picks, directly on the page.
• Explore our customized Google Map, which shows you where some of your favorite nominated movies were filmed, as well as where the nominees were born. It’s geography with a celeb twist.
• Download the Official Oscars App for Android, available for the first time in the Play Store.

Or, maybe you’re making bets with your friends on who’s going to win... Try taking a hint from Google Trends and see who the most searched-for nominees of 2012 were. You never know—the actual winners may end up being pretty similar to Google’s Search “winners.”

For those of you with the itch to win an Oscar yourself, see what it feels like in a Google+ Hangout—we've got a new effect that will make you feel like a star. And if you end up being so inspired by the idea of holding an Oscar, then we’d also like to hear what you’d say if you won the real thing, using the Oscars “Acceptance Speech” widget.

Oscars night is about celebrating the movies—whether you starred in them or just dreamed about the stars. We hope this site will help you get the most out of the night, so go ahead and join Google on the red carpet at google.com/oscars. And don’t forget to tune in on February 24 at 7pm EST / 4pm PST on ABC to see who this year’s lucky winners are.

Posted by Liz Wessel, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Doodle 4 Google: A stately competition

To contact us Click HERE
Are you a young artist from California? Alabama? Or Indiana (like me!)? Well, get doodling with the topic “My Best Day Ever…” for a chance to see your very own artwork on the Google homepage—and help represent your piece of the union.

Today marks the 30-day countdown to the March 22 submission deadline for the U.S. Doodle 4 Google competition. And in the spirit of friendly competition, we’re inviting you to rally fellow students and teachers in your state to take part in Doodle 4 Google’s 30-day Race to the Finish with an interactive map that shows the top submitting states. States are ranked in order of submissions relative to student population size.


Whether your state tops the submissions race or not, you still have the chance to become the individual state winner. The 50 state winners will win an all-expenses paid trip to New York City in May for the final awards ceremony, where we’ll reveal the winning doodle. The national winner will see his or her doodle on the Google homepage, win a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 technology grant for his or her school. Download an entry form today to get doodling!

Fun fact for those of you who can’t get enough doodles: we run Doodle 4 Google competitions in many countries worldwide, year-round. Vote for your Irish favorites now—the winner will appear on www.google.ie on April 16.

As always, happy doodling!

Posted by Ryan Germick, Doodle Team Lead

The Chromebook Pixel, for what’s next

To contact us Click HERE
Chromebooks were designed to make computing speedy, simple and secure. For many of you, they have become the perfect, additional (and yes, affordable) computer: ideal for catching up on emails, sharing documents and chatting via Hangouts. We’re tremendously grateful to our partners—Samsung, Acer, Lenovo and HP—for their commitment. The momentum has been remarkable: the Samsung Chromebook has been #1 on Amazon’s bestseller list for laptops every day since it launched 125 days ago in the U.S., and Chromebooks now represent more than 10 percent of notebook sales at Currys PC World, the largest electronics retailer in the U.K.

So what’s next? Today we’re excited to announce our newest laptop—the Chromebook Pixel—which brings together the best in hardware, software and design to inspire the next generation of Chromebooks. With the Pixel, we set out to rethink all elements of a computer in order to design the best laptop possible, especially for power users who have fully embraced the cloud. The philosophy of Chrome has always been to minimize the “chrome” of the browser. In much the same way, the goal of the Pixel is to make the pixels disappear, giving people the best web experience.


Let’s start with the screen. This Chromebook has the highest pixel density (239 pixels per inch) of any laptop screen on the market today. Packed with 4.3 million pixels, the display offers sharp text, vivid colors and extra-wide viewing angles. With a screen this rich and engaging, you want to reach out and touch it—so we added touch for a more immersive experience. Touch makes it simple and intuitive to do things like organize tabs, swipe through apps and edit photos with the tip of your finger.

The Pixel has been engineered with the highest quality components to ensure it’s comfortable to use all day long and meets the needs of demanding power users. The body of the Pixel is made from an anodized aluminum alloy to create a smooth and durable surface; vents are hidden, screws are invisible and the stereo speakers are seamlessly tucked away beneath the backlit keyboard. The touchpad is made from etched glass, analyzed and honed using a laser microscope to ensure precise navigation. The Pixel also has powerful, full-range speakers for crisp sound, a 720p webcam for clear video, and a total of three microphones designed to cancel out surrounding noise.

Other aspects of the Pixel include:

• Speed: Speed has been a core tenet of Chrome and Chromebooks since the beginning. For Pixel, it’s critical that the overall experience, everything from loading webpages to switching between apps, is near instant. Powered by an Intel® Core™ i5 Processor and a solid state Flash memory architecture, the Pixel performs remarkably fast.
  
  
• Connectivity: The Pixel has an industry-leading WiFi range thanks to carefully positioned antennas and dual-band support. Long-term evolution (LTE) is engineered directly into the machine, delivering fast connectivity across Verizon's network, the largest, fastest 4G LTE network in the U.S. (LTE model optional). It also comes with 12 free GoGo® Inflight Internet passes for those times you need to connect while in the air.
  
  
• Storage: Since this Chromebook is for people who live in the cloud, one terabyte of Google Drive cloud storage* is included with the Pixel. This enables you to save, access and share photos, videos, documents, and all of your stuff from all of your devices, from anywhere.

Finally, as you’ve come to expect from all Chromebooks, all of your favorite Google products like Search, Gmail, YouTube, Maps and Google+ Hangouts are integrated and just a click away. And since it’s based on Chrome OS, the Pixel boots up in seconds and never slows down, requires almost zero setup or maintenance, and comes with built-in virus protection. Best of all, it stays up to date with automatic updates every few weeks.



If you want to be part of the next step in the Chromebook journey, the Pixel will be available for purchase starting today on Google Play in the U.S. and U.K., and soon on BestBuy.com. The WiFi version ($1,299 U.S. and £1,049 U.K.) will start shipping next week and the LTE version ($1,449) will ship in the U.S. in April. If you’re interested in a hands-on experience, you can visit select Best Buy (U.S.) and Currys PC World (U.K.) store locations.

It’s one of the most exciting times in the history of personal computing, thanks to a rapid pace of change, innovation and consumer adoption of devices. Our goal is to continue to push the experience forward for everyone, working with the entire ecosystem to build the next generation of Chrome OS devices. We hope you enjoy what’s next.

Posted by Linus Upson, Vice President of Engineering

*You will have 1TB of free storage for 3 years, starting on the date you redeem the offer on eligible Chrome devices.

Our first-ever Google Journalism Fellowship winners

To contact us Click HERE
More than 2,300 students from across the globe applied for the first Google Journalism Fellowship. The interest the Fellowship attracted clearly demonstrates the need for these types of opportunities, especially as the worlds of journalism and technology increasingly become one.

The students who have been picked for the 10-week program will get the chance to work with organizations focused on exciting projects ranging from those steeped in investigative journalism to those working for press freedom around the world and to those that are helping the industry figure out its future in the digital age. They will also spend a week with the Knight Foundation and a week with Google.

We had so many applications—on the last day they poured in at a rate of roughly one every two minutes—that we extended our review period by a week to make selections. Our host organizations had the unenviable task of choosing just one Fellow out of the mass of talented students who applied; the Nieman Journalism Lab is taking two Fellows.

The Fellows who will take part in the program are:

• Center for Investigative Reporting - Nathaniel Lash of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Committee to Protect Journalists - Lauren Fedor of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
• Investigative Reporters & Editors - Nicole Pasulka of New York University
• Nieman Journalism Lab - Sarah Darville of Columbia University and Linda Kinstler of Bowdoin College
• Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism - Jan Lauren Boyles of American University
• Poynter - Anna Li from Stanford University
• ProPublica - Stephen Suen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Thank you to everyone who made the effort to apply and to the host organizations for their hard work.

Posted by Maggie Shiels, Google Communications and former BBC journalist

Google Apps Prepares Prudential Georgia Realty Agents For The Future

To contact us Click HERE
Posted by Tony Floyd, SVP & Chief Marketing Officer at Prudential Georgia Realty

Editor's note: Our guest blogger is Tony Floyd, Chief Marketing Officer at Prudential Georgia Realty, metro Atlanta's largest real estate brokerage. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.



At Prudential Georgia Realty, our associates work hard to deliver valuable services to their clients. Their work ethic and great skills have helped us become the largest real estate company in the Greater Metro Atlanta area. We were recently named by REALTrends as one of only 17 real estate companies in the country to increase its sales volume, agent headcount and agent productivity over the last 10 years.

With more than 1,000 agents in 22 offices, spread out over 43 counties around Atlanta, it is critical for our agents and staff to communicate efficiently with current and potential clients. Communication is the backbone of our business - our agents have to manage a lot of contacts, files, photos and other information and they need access on their mobile devices. We had two separate email systems, a hosted Microsoft® Exchange 2007 server for employees and an open source solution for our agents. We wanted to migrate to a single system that allowed us to support the transition to a more virtual working environment and foster better collaboration internally. Another consideration was the ability for our agents to organize and manage their contacts into groups so they could run campaigns and stay in contact using any of their devices. After a careful evaluation, we decided to move to the Google Apps platform.

We migrated the employees to Google Apps in December and have already seen an improvement in our communication. When our agents go live, Google Apps will help them run their business from any location using any device. Google Groups will let agents easily organize and manage their client and contact lists, so with one click they can send more relevant marketing content to a specific group of people. Most importantly, since it’s all in the cloud, these Groups will automatically sync to any device so the agent can follow up with a personal phone call.

Google Drive allows us to share large files and documents and manage the security at the same time. We plan to implement Google Sites, so each branch or division will have a searchable and sharable place to store information like a high resolution photos. Teams can work together on projects more effectively and collaborate on live documents. Agents will now be able to create personalized Google Sites tailored to specialized groups of prospects like first time buyers, baby boomers, or potential luxury home buyers.

Real estate is a very competitive business. Google Apps puts the information at our fingertips, which gives us a leg up. Leveraging the right technology can be game changing for the real estate industry, and we’re excited to be a leader in that effort.

ICOM Productions pushes the eLearning envelope with Google Apps

To contact us Click HERE
Posted by Jared Tabler, Vice President of Operations at ICOM Productions

Editor's note: Our guest blogger is Jared Tabler, Vice President of Operations at ICOM Productions, a Calgary, Alberta-based eLearning company. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.


ICOM Productions is a 100-person company focused on helping companies better engage and develop their employees by freshening up their training programs. We pride ourselves on being progressive, young and vibrant; we encourage our employees to question old habits, push the envelope and change the way we teach and learn every day.

When I joined as VP of Operations less than a year ago, I was shocked by how our progressive mentality clashed with our old, slow and unreliable technology. We were using a piecemeal technology solution built around Microsoft® Exchange that made everyday processes disjointed and inefficient. We wanted employees from each of our three offices to be able to collaborate on projects, but the process of emailing versions back and forth and editing them in silos wasn't quite the collaboration we were looking for. We knew we needed something better, but upgrading to the newest Exchange Server would have cost us a fortune and still leave us three years behind the latest technology.

It turned out that our forward-thinking employees were pushing the envelope with technology on the side, too: they'd started using their personal Google accounts at work. They were sharing files through Google Drive and creating project hubs with Google Sites. Over the next few months, we talked with our employees and Agosto, a Google Apps Reseller, and we came to a clear conclusion: moving ICOM to Google Apps was the best path forward. In the Fall of 2012, Agosto partnered with our technical team to put a migration plan in place, and 30 days later, all 100 employees were on Apps. It was the fastest IT implementation I’ve ever done.

Google+ Hangouts have completely revolutionized our recruiting process. Instead of relying on phone screenings, which don’t really convey a candidate’s personality, or flying people to Calgary, which is expensive, we use Hangouts, which cost nothing and bring each prospect’s character to life. We like to do group interviews via Hangouts to see how people think and interact - group collaboration is huge at ICOM, and you get a good sense of that over video conference. Our candidates love that we’re using new technology and we love that we’re still getting the same valuable insight about our candidates.

Google Apps has helped us be more efficient, more forward-thinking and more cost-effective. It’s also helped us strengthen the ICOM culture we pride ourselves on - being creative, asking thought-provoking questions and working as a team. All of this, of course, means that we’re getting better at what we do: helping other companies teach and train their employees more effectively. Just like what Apps has done for us.

Chrome's Giant Touch-Optimized Menu

To contact us Click HERE
Somewhere between Chrome 25 (beta) and Chrome 26 (dev), the browser's menu got bigger. It's now optimized for touch interfaces even if you're using a non-touch computer. I've checked the height of the menu and it's now 580 pixels, instead of 420 pixels. That's a 38% increase and it makes the interface more difficult to use for mouse users.


When you use Chrome's sync feature, the menu's height becomes 625 pixels. Here's how a recent Chromium build looks on my 1280x800 laptop and remember that most laptops sold right now have a 1366x768 resolution:


Chrome also changed the contextual menu:

An update on our war against account hijackers

To contact us Click HERE
Have you ever gotten a plea to wire money to a friend stranded at an international airport? An oddly written message from someone you haven’t heard from in ages? Compared to five years ago, more scams, illegal, fraudulent or spammy messages today come from someone you know. Although spam filters have become very powerful—in Gmail, less than 1 percent of spam emails make it into an inbox—these unwanted messages are much more likely to make it through if they come from someone you’ve been in contact with before. As a result, in 2010 spammers started changing their tactics—and we saw a large increase in fraudulent mail sent from Google Accounts. In turn, our security team has developed new ways to keep you safe, and dramatically reduced the amount of these messages.

Spammers’ new trick—hijacking accounts
To improve their chances of beating a spam filter by sending you spam from your contact’s account, the spammer first has to break into that account. This means many spammers are turning into account thieves. Every day, cyber criminals break into websites to steal databases of usernames and passwords—the online “keys” to accounts. They put the databases up for sale on the black market, or use them for their own nefarious purposes. Because many people re-use the same password across different accounts, stolen passwords from one site are often valid on others.

With stolen passwords in hand, attackers attempt to break into accounts across the web and across many different services. We’ve seen a single attacker using stolen passwords to attempt to break into a million different Google accounts every single day, for weeks at a time. A different gang attempted sign-ins at a rate of more than 100 accounts per second. Other services are often more vulnerable to this type of attack, but when someone tries to log into your Google Account, our security system does more than just check that a password is correct.

Legitimate accounts blocked for sending spam: Our security systems have dramatically reduced the number of Google Accounts used to send spam over the past few years
How Google Security helps protect your account
Every time you sign in to Google, whether via your web browser once a month or an email program that checks for new mail every five minutes, our system performs a complex risk analysis to determine how likely it is that the sign-in really comes from you. In fact, there are more than 120 variables that can factor into how a decision is made.

If a sign-in is deemed suspicious or risky for some reason—maybe it’s coming from a country oceans away from your last sign-in—we ask some simple questions about your account. For example, we may ask for the phone number associated with your account, or for the answer to your security question. These questions are normally hard for a hijacker to solve, but are easy for the real owner. Using security measures like these, we've dramatically reduced the number of compromised accounts by 99.7 percent since the peak of these hijacking attempts in 2011.


Help protect your account
While we do our best to keep spammers at bay, you can help protect your account by making sure you’re using a strong, unique password for your Google Account, upgrading your account to use 2-step verification, and updating the recovery options on your account such as your secondary email address and your phone number. Following these three steps can help prevent your account from being hijacked—this means less spam for your friends and contacts, and improved security and privacy for you.

Posted by Mike Hearn, Google Security Engineer

Fireside Hangouts: Join First Lady Michelle Obama in a Google+ Hangout to discuss Let’s Move!

To contact us Click HERE
In the past month, both the President and Vice President of the United States have come to Google+ to participate in "Fireside Hangouts" to discuss the challenges the country faces and answer people's questions. On March 4, it's First Lady Michelle Obama's turn as she joins her first-ever Fireside Hangout to discuss Let’s Move!, her initiative to ensure that all our children grow up healthy and reach their full potential. The First Lady will be joined by Kelly Ripa, Emmy award-winning co-host of popular daytime talk show "LIVE with Kelly and Michael," and families from around the country.

Three years ago, the First Lady launched the Let's Move! initiative to unite the country around our kids' health and create real support for families to live healthier lives. Since then communities across the United States have worked together to share, collaborate on and create ways to improve the health of our nation's children. This year, the First Lady is using Google+ to celebrate the anniversary of Let's Move! and to connect with communities on Google+ who are passionate about healthy eating, fitness and parenting.


For a chance to join the Google+ Hangout with First Lady Michelle Obama, share your thoughts and questions on raising healthier families and communities on the Let's Move YouTube channel. Submit a video or text entry (video is preferred) telling us a bit about yourself, what your family does to stay healthy and a question for the First Lady by Thursday, February 28, 2013.

Then tune in to the First Lady's Fireside Hangout live on the White House Google+ Page or Let's Move YouTube channel at 11:10 am ET on March 4.

Posted by Ria Tobaccowala, Google+ Community Partnerships