Posted by Jilli Hume, Program Manager, Google for Education team

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

Editor's note: Small schools are seeing great success with Google for Education tools. We spoke with educators and administrators from smaller districts across the United States to better understand how technology has helped them innovate, create more efficient processes, and make a positive impact on their students. This is the second in a series of posts where we explore the impact small schools are making on their students. To learn more about using Google for Education tools in charter schools, visit us here. 

Charter schools are small but mighty. While they don’t have the resources and support an entire district has, they do have ambitious goals when it comes to educating their students. We’ve encountered a number of charter schools who are leading the way in their use of technology to help students become inquisitive learners, fostering in them a desire to learn about the world around them. These charter schools are using interactive experiences to spark students’ imaginations, encouraging them to learn about international landmarks, social issues in their communities and historical events that have shaped our country. They’ve found that when students acknowledge diversity in their communities and the world, they’re encouraged to think about how they can create positive change beyond the classroom.

Greater exposure to social issues and diverse perspectives 

Teachers at Brooklyn Prospect Charter School use technology to host discussions about current events, giving every student a voice — including those who are quieter in a traditional classroom setting. For example, after one teacher shared an article with her class about conflict in the Middle East via Google Classroom, every student had the opportunity to comment and share his or her opinion via a text-based discussion in Classroom.

"The most interesting thing I learned from classmates during Google Classroom discussions is how they interpreted a book we read,” says Lena Gallager, an 11th grade student at Brooklyn Prospect Charter School. “We were able to compare our thoughts on the book and build ideas off of each other.”

“When we discussed poetry using Google Classroom, I gained a sense of others’ perspectives. Google Classroom made it really collaborative and easy to share knowledge on the topic,” says fellow 11th grader Nicolas Villarosa.

Along with having open conversations about international news, students at Brooklyn Prospect are encouraged to learn about the issues affecting their own communities. One 10th grader wanted to understand what his peers viewed as the most concerning global issues. As his end-of-the-year project for the international baccalaureate program, he created a survey in Google Forms to collect his peers’ opinions on the topic. He then used those responses as inspiration to compose a musical protest album to raise awareness for the gravity of the issues.

“Technology is helping our students become citizens of the world by cultivating their awareness and giving them a global view,” says Tyra Frederick, educational technology coordinator and high school English teacher at Brooklyn Prospect.

Interactive learning about our forefathers 

Exposing students to a global curriculum at a young age is vital for them to become well-rounded, culturally aware citizens. In addition to teaching geography and history, many schools teach classes about international current events. They also explore how historical events have shaped a city’s identity.

Westlake Charter Schools, for example, encourages students to become curious learners about their pasts. When eighth grade history teacher, Caroline Gaea, gave students an assignment to map the Manifest Destiny across the United States by dropping pins in Google Maps, students went above and beyond. They engaged in critical thinking, not only commenting on the significance of a location at a particular moment in time, but also noting the overall importance of that moment in the broader context of American history.

An eighth grade student at Westlake Charter Schools comments on a city's role in the Manifest Destiny

“My favorite part of the project was being able to be creative with information and make it fun to read,” says Maya, an eighth grader at Westlake Charter Schools. “There were so many different ways to learn the same thing, so each student was able to customize their experience.”

Even after that assignment was complete, students took the initiative to dive deeper into the topic — they impressed their teacher with a historical map of the United States, using layers in Google Maps to show the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.

Westlake Charter Schools students create a collaborative, historical map in Google Maps

“This project made me even more excited to learn about American history because the Google tools give us an opportunity to express our knowledge on a whole new level,” says Grace, an eighth grader at Westlake Charter Schools.

“Mapping out the places and presidents of that time period made it feel like we were there because we understood it better,” says Jada, an eighth grader at Westlake Charter Schools.

Taking virtual field trips around the world

Students at Challenge to Excellence Charter School are using technology to travel outside of the classroom. When a second grade student traveled to India for a family vacation, his classmates virtually went with him. The student took a tablet so he could take pictures of his trip and share them with the class. Back in the classroom, students researched the landmarks that their classmate was visiting and had a real-life view of places like the Taj Mahal using Google Earth.

“It was so fun to be able to take my tablet with me to India to take pictures and then send them to my class,” says Arushi, a second grader at Challenge to Excellence Charter School. “Mrs. Stewart shared the pictures with the class before I even got back home.”

“When the student came back from his trip, his classmates showed him all the pictures and information they’d collected,” says Julie Stewart, technology integration specialist at Challenge to Excellence Charter School. “You could feel their excitement — the project helped take my students outside the four walls of the classroom.”

These are just a few of the ways charter schools are inspiring students to think big and learn about experiences beyond their own. What do you think? What are the best ways for schools — public, independent or charter — to approach a global education?

Posted by Cassie Ely, Manager in the Office of Chief Scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund

Editor's note: This is the third post in our “Mapping a Better World” series, highlighting organizations using location data to affect positive local and global change. Today’s guest blogger is Cassie Ely, Manager in the Office of Chief Scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund. Read how the organization uses Google Maps APIs to help combat climate change by locating methane leaks underneath city streets.


The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) works to solve the world’s biggest environmental problems through innovative public policies, robust science and cross-cutting partnerships with leading voices in the business community. Our partnership with Google reflects all three approaches.

Most people don’t realize that a major contributor to global warming is methane, the primary component of natural gas. It’s an extremely powerful greenhouse gas: 84 times as impactful as carbon dioxide over a 20-year timeframe. We still need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but cutting the amount of methane emitted into the atmosphere has the power to reduce the rate of global warming when time is of the essence.

About 25 percent of the warming we face right now is due to methane. It can be released from biological sources like landfills and cow pastures, but can also come from leaky pipes underneath city streets, delivering the natural gas that heats our homes and provides cooking fuel. We thought that if we could reduce those gas leaks, we could help slow climate change.

To address this issue, we joined forces with Google Earth Outreach to put methane analyzers on Google Street View cars. While the cars drive to capture 360-degree Street View imagery, the analyzers measure the concentration of the methane gas in the air.

The team is also working with a scientist and professor at Colorado State University, Joe von Fischer, to analyze the spikes in methane levels and detect leaks in the underground pipes. We do multiple drive-passes and combine the readings with methane plume lengths and environmental factors to identify the severity of the leaks. We’ve conducted this research in 10 cities, where we’ve mapped over 4,000 methane leaks.

Anyone can visit edf.org/methanemaps to view leak maps of several U.S. cities, such as Boston, MA.

We chose to use Google Maps APIs because they have the design features and flexibility we needed to visualize the data in a way that can be easily understood. Google Maps APIs allow us to map the invisible. We use the Javascript API to build the base layer for our maps and then on top of that, layer the roads where Street View cars drive and the locations where our analyzers detected methane leaks.

With layered mapping, we've shown that there's an average of one leak per mile (in Boston) to one leak every 200 miles (in Indianapolis), demonstrating the effectiveness of techniques like using plastic piping instead of steel for pipeline construction. We hope utilities can use this data to prioritize the replacement of gas mains and service lines (like New Jersey’s PSE&G announced last fall).

Global warming is a huge global threat to all of our ecosystems, our livelihood and our health. It affects everything we do. By making information about methane leaks transparent, we’re providing a unique way for utilities, regulators and the public to work together and invest in infrastructure improvement and repairs — helping us reach our ultimate goal of combatting climate change.

If you are a nonprofit and interested in staying up to date on grants offerings for Google products like Google Maps APIs, apply to join Google for Nonprofits today.

Posted by Chris Huff, Vice President of Mobile Development, The Weather Channel

(Cross-posted on the Google Geo Developers Blog.)

Editor’s note: Today’s guest blogger is Chris Huff, Vice President of Mobile Development at The Weather Channel. Read how The Weather Channel uses Google Maps APIs to power their popular Android app. The Weather Channel is just one of many customers who shared their story as part of our cross-country road trip, Code the Road.

We know from experience that the combination of weather, mapping and community input can result in ideas that keep people safe and informed. Our Android app goes far beyond basic weather forecasting, which is why we chose Google Maps. We use Google Maps Android API, Google Maps JavaScript API and ImageOverlays to place geodata, such as weather alerts, hurricanes and storm tracks and weather tiles, such as radar maps and clouds, on top of Google Maps.

Radar maps are one of the app’s main features, and we work hard to get them right. We get radar imagery from multiple sources and produce raster images from them. Then we take hundreds of the images and animate them in a frame-based animation sequence. The Google Maps Android API gives us overlays to place the animation on top of maps, and also lets us add additional objects such as pins and polygons to visualize lightning strikes or a storm’s direction. You can see an example below.

The more local weather reporting is, the more accurate it is; a thunderstorm may skip one neighborhood but hit another. So to improve accuracy and to build a community around our app, we’ve worked to make it more social. People send us information about weather near them, and we use the Google Maps Android API to add a pin to the map for each user-created report. Anyone can tap a pin to see the detailed report. Here’s an example of social weather reporting.

With more than 68 million downloads, the app has been a tremendous success. We get 2 billion requests for radar maps every year. There’s an old saying that everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it. We beg to disagree. With the Google Maps APIs we’re giving people detailed, useful live information about the weather, and we believe that’s doing quite a bit.

As part of the Code the Road series we hosted the 24-hour hackathon event, “Storm the Road: Hack for Safety with The Weather Channel and Google Maps”, on June 23. The event gave developers an opportunity to come together to create a new app or feature for mobile or web that helps keep the public safe and informed.

Posted by Stafford Marquardt, Product Manager, Google My Maps

Whether you’re planning your next event, mapping out the best route to visit clients, or sharing the location of your food truck with fans, Google My Maps makes it easy to put your world on a custom map. Starting today, you can access My Maps right from Google Drive on your Google Apps account, so it’s even easier to create, find and share your custom maps. Here are some examples:

Jessica owns a food truck and every Thursday she decides her location based on fan votes. She creates a Google Form and posts it online, gathers votes and can lay them all out on one map to find the most popular location.

Shannon is gearing up for her company’s annual conference. This year, with the help of Google Apps Script, she created a Drive folder for each attendee with their tickets, event information and a custom map with event details and their hotel.

Martin is the delivery coordinator for a multi-chain electronics store. He creates My Maps laying out the most efficient routes for all the deliveries. He drops each map into his team’s shared Drive folder, so each driver can access everything they need, from maps to delivery lists, all in one place. Once Martin assigns routes, drivers can use any device to simply search the folder for the right map.

My Maps is also helpful in the classroom to teach kids about explorers like Lewis and Clark, and to plan out your weekend hike. Whatever your needs, Google My Maps—now accessible in Google Drive—makes getting things done that much easier.

Posted by: Scott Johnston, Director of Product Management, Google Drive

Since we launched Drive for Work 9 months ago, we've watched as more and more businesses moved to the cloud — and seen that they prioritize data security as much as we do. Security ranks at the top of the list of concerns that companies have about moving to the cloud, which is why we’ve put security front and center in our products from the beginning. And to keep your company’s data even more secure in Drive, we’re launching new sharing controls, alerts and audit events to Google Drive for Work and Google for Education over the next several weeks.

For Google Drive for Work customers:

Set sharing settings by department
Sometimes different file settings make sense. You might, for example, have a research department that needs to keep information confidential and a sales team that needs to share presentations with their clients. To help manage these different sharing needs, now when you make selections in Drive settings from the Admin console, you can turn off sharing outside the domain for one organizational unit, while still allowing others to work and share files with anyone they need to.

Create custom Drive alerts and track more events with Drive audit

To keep track of when specific actions are taken in Drive, you can set up custom Drive alerts. So if you want to know when a file containing the word “confidential” in the title is shared outside the company, now you’ll know. And there are more events coming to Drive audit, including download, print and preview.

For all Google Apps for Work customers:

Set up custom admin alerts to find out when things change

There are lots of moving parts to running a company, and now it’s easier for IT to find out about the things they care about with custom alerts — like when a new app is installed or a shared calendar is deleted — and get those right in their inbox.

Let people reset their own passwords
Recovering passwords isn’t the most pleasant thing we do in our lives. But now IT can let employees securely reset their own passwords, so they don’t lose valuable time being locked out of their account. If this doesn’t make sense for your organization, admins can simply turn this ability off.

Available for all to use:

Disable downloading, printing and copying of any file with IRM
With Information Rights Management (“IRM”) you can disable downloading, printing and copying from the advanced sharing menu – perfect for when the file you’re sharing is only meant for a few select people. This new option is available for any file stored in Google Drive, including documents, spreadsheets and presentations created in Google Docs.

Share quickly with anyone outside your organization
When it comes to sharing, like giving final inventory lists to your caterer or last minute logos to your design agency, you want to make sure people can see it right away — whether they use Drive or not. Now, you can share with any email address and they’ll be able to view the files you share —without having to sign-in to a Google account. Admins can disable this feature for certain departments that want to require sign-in before , while enabling it for others.

All the above are rolling out over the next month.

Stay tuned for more
We’re also working on the ability to establish trusted domains, so businesses and schools that have multiple Google Apps domains or want to work with trusted partners or customers, can select multiple Google Apps domains that are OK to share with from Drive and Classroom. And on expiring access, because occasionally you only want to share files for a temporary amount of time. With expiring access you can set a future date when access will be removed. Stay tuned, there's more to come from Drive and Drive for Work.

Posted by Daniel Scrivano, lead developer for EV Explorer, and currently a developer for Insikt, Inc.

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Daniel Scrivano, former lead developer for the UC Davis EV Explorer. See how EV Explorer and other developers rely on Google Maps APIs to bring unique location experiences to their users.

Most people know they can help the environment by driving an electric vehicle, but they often don’t realize they can save money, too. As a student at UC Davis, I started a research project to make these savings clearer. The EV Explorer website, launched last summer, lets drivers compare fuel costs for electric and gas-powered vehicles.

EV Explorer uses the Google Maps APIs and a database called fueleconomy.gov to give drivers information about the fuel economy of 34,000 different vehicles. EV Explorer visitors enter their commuting starting points and destinations, along with how often they commute. Based on that data, the site calculates the annual energy costs for up to four vehicles.

We built EV Explorer using several of Google’s mapping APIs: JavaScript, Directions, Places and Geocoding. EV Explorer downloads the appropriate map and helps people visualize the data they’re inputting. If people don’t know their work address, they can type in the name of their business and Places API geolocates it. The Geocoding API converts any address into latitude and longitude. We query the Directions API when we’ve got the specific points for home and work. The app then draws the route using polylines between the two locations.

We chose Google Maps APIs because Google’s mapping database consistently ranks among the most comprehensive, up to date, and user-friendly. With Google Maps, a user can type in “Safeway” and “San Francisco” to see all the Safeway locations in the city and choose among them. If they mistype something or include incomplete information, auto-correcting tools offer suggestions and corrections.

In building the site, I kept one thing in mind: You won’t make it until you break it. That means you need to experiment, try new things, get your hands dirty, and make random stuff. You’ve got to push the APIs to their limits. And by doing just that, we delivered what we set out to do: Help people understand the wider benefits of electric vehicles and show them how much they could save by switching to electric.

Posted by Ed Bindl, Senior Software Engineer and Jacinda Shelly, Lead Platform Engineer, Doctor on Demand

Editor's note: Since the launch of Google Maps ten years ago, maps have come a long way. To celebrate a decade of map innovation, we’re highlighting unique maps built by our developer community. Read how guest bloggers, Ed Bindl and Jacinda Shelly, Software Engineers for Doctor on Demand, use the Google Maps APIs to bring unique mapping experiences to users.

Maps can do much more for an online business than help people get from point A to point B. You might not think that a website for making video appointments with medical professionals would benefit from mapping — but at Doctor on Demand, maps connect our patients to physicians faster and allow physicians to prescribe medications at the right pharmacies. Google Maps make our user experience much more satisfying, which means patients will use our service again.

We use the Google Maps APIs, including the Geolocation and Javascript APIs, to show patients a map of nearby pharmacies before they start a video call with a medical professional. For our users, maps make it easy and convenient to connect with physicians and pick up prescriptions at the pharmacy. But maps can be helpful for other businesses in other ways. And now that we see the great value of incorporating reliable map functionality into our app, we'd love to share how you can do the same:

• Choose a familiar interface. Use a map that’s easy for people to navigate – if it’s hard to understand and requires extensive instructions, they won’t use it. We picked Google Maps because our patients know them well.

• Configure maps for many platforms. If your users find maps helpful on your desktop website, they’ll want to use maps from any browser or device. We’ve made sure our maps work just as well on iOS and Android devices as they do on a desktop computer.

• Maintain accuracy. In our case, we have to update the geolocation information for about 65,000 pharmacies across the country every evening. We use the Google Maps Geocoding API, which minimizes the time it takes to keep our map accurate. We keep a database of all pharmacies from Surescripts, a healthcare network, and each night we get an update to that database that adds, removes, and updates pharmacies and their locations. We use the Google Maps Javascript API to place the pharmacies on our map when a patient is asked to select a pharmacy.

• Meet compliance standards. In order to comply with medical regulations, Doctor On Demand must connect patients with physicians licensed in their state. We use the Google Maps Reverse Geocoding API to accurately determine the state a patient is located in before connecting them with a physician.

• Help users save time and make better choices. Before we built our pharmacy map, patients had to tell doctors which pharmacy they wanted to use. Then doctors emailed us the details. However, our support team had to follow up with doctors and patients to make sure we had the right pharmacy, since patients might say something like, “the drugstore down the street from my house.” Today, there’s no doubt about which pharmacy is the right one, since patients can clearly see their local outlets on the map.

Our pharmacy map inspires us to think about new ways to use maps in the future – like plotting the movement of cold and flu outbreaks and sharing this data with patients and doctors. We see a direct connection between maps and improving patient care. In the greater scheme, Google Maps improve the health of our patients, and, the health of our business.

Posted by Goldy Arora, Director of Google for Work Solutions, MediaAgility

Editor's note: Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Goldy Arora, Director of Google for Work solutions at MediaAgility, a technology consulting company building industry specific solutions. See how MediaAgility and other developers are using the Google Maps APIs to bring maps and location content to their users. 

I love using elegant code to come up with cool applications, but I also know that being a great developer means thinking both like a business person and an engineer. When we create map-based applications at MediaAgility, we think about not just what we are building and how it will look and operate, but why we are building it. How, in other words, do the maps we make meet both our business objectives and make a positive impact on people’s lives?

We use the tools in the Google Maps API to develop solutions in a way that helps businesses make sense of data. Right now, we’re working on an application called Insurance Insights, which will help sales teams at Insurance companies create campaigns and base decisions on geographic data related to crime, income and natural disasters.

When working with maps, we aim to understand the business objectives of the end customer and how it will impact lives. In the case of Insurance Insights, we are taking several steps in the development process that we think will result in a valuable and user-friendly product, including:

• Publishing data from multiple sources. We’re adding back-end systems and databases so we can add useful information to Google Maps. For example, we’ve integrated income data for residents, locations of recent natural disasters and sales databases. For this product, we built a script to obtain Salesforce data using their API. Then we employed the Google Maps API to publish the Salesforce data to our maps.

• Creating multiple viewing options. Our map overlays allow users to choose how they want to view the information. An agent may want to market insurance for valuables in high-income neighborhoods, or perhaps offer flood insurance to people in flood-prone areas. They’ll benefit from the insights provided by the various overlays for different marketing campaigns.
• Erring on the side of more data. We upload as much data as we can. We then call the data with the Maps API whenever we want to test a new feature on the map. Since we are data-ready, we create prototypes within an hour instead of taking days – and build rich, insightful features in less time to market.
• Experimenting and improving. We iterate frequently to make the best possible product. In the case of Insurance Insights, we created a basic application using Google Maps so we could show it to potential customers. As we work with real market feedback, we add more features. This iterative approach is much smarter than spending six months on an application before finding out if customers like it – we’d rather go to market every six weeks so we know which direction to pursue.

Maps are an important part of people’s daily lives, and we're eager to engineer more applications built around new ideas. For example, visual forecasting and pipeline metrics are some of the key features in our next release of Insurance Insights.

In many cases, maps are an intuitive and highly visual way to understand a business — much richer and simpler than spreadsheets or presentations. Even if the information is complex, the user experience need not be, all thanks to the Google Maps APIs.

Posted by Matt Laroche, Android Engineering Lead, Strava

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Matt Laroche, Android Engineering Lead at Strava, a social network and community for athletes. See how Strava and other developers are using the Google Maps API to bring maps and location content to their users.

In distance training, runners and cyclists always want to know how far they’ve gone and track where they’ve been. At Strava, we provide them with this information and a lot more: we measure, map and analyze the runs and rides of millions of athletes around the world so they can get the most out of their workouts.

To do this, we use Google Maps to show them exactly where they’ve run or cycled. We can even help them plan future routes.

Mapping is a big part of what our members do with Strava. Maps help them relive past workouts, visually share their run or ride with friends, and engage in friendly competition. We started using Google Maps API when we launched five years ago. We tested other mapping providers, but found that Google Maps was the best API for mobile — it’s the easiest to use to create new maps, especially when using polylines to draw routes and mark items on a map. It’s a straightforward, developer-friendly API.

Because maps are key to the Strava experience, we pay close attention to the tools we use and how our members will benefit. Here are three areas we focus on when developing our maps using the Google Maps API:

Performance

We compile a huge amount of location data — including 400 billion GPS data points of the activities our members share from around the world. GPS data can tell us where our members are going in real-time. With the Google Maps API, interaction and display or map tile latency is minimal and rendering was faster than other services we tried, despite the large amounts of data in use. To make the app work even faster, we trimmed down the data points that are delivered back to the user’s device.

Control

Our members spend a lot of time looking at maps on the Strava app and have different needs, although all of them want detailed information. They also want the power to play with different views. With Google Maps, they have a lot of options. They can switch between different map tiles, including normal, satellite and terrain. Terrain view is key for showing them if a particular route will send them uphill, and if so, what elevation changes they can expect. The maps also have an intricate level of detail, such as bike lanes and paths, which gives users vital information for planning their workouts. The interaction is smooth too — zooming, rotation, and map tilting work in a way our members expect.

Creativity

With Google Maps API, we have a lot of room for creativity and experimentation. For example, we created a Heat Map that visualizes the most popular trails and roads based on 160 million rides and runs. Our Activity Playback project lets users watch their rides and runs and see where they might have passed friends who were on the same path at that time.

Google Maps lets us plot new ways athletes can visualize their data. We’re testing Google My Maps, a feature in Google Maps on Android that offers a simple, fast version for users on the go. We can launch new web ideas on Strava Labs, which doesn’t require us to do full support or commit to integration in the long run. This gives us flexibility to try new things and see what resonates with our users.

We’re able to focus on the user experience — particularly performance, control and creativity — because Google Maps is developer-friendly. It minimizes grunt work, like re-writing thousands of lines of boilerplate code. The API natively handles features we’d otherwise have to build — like identifying which map marker is nearest to a user when she searches for a location. Because of this simplicity, we can focus on making the app more useful and intuitive.

Posted by Demitris Memos, Managing Director of MarineTraffic

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Demitris Memos, Managing Director of MarineTraffic, whose website and app are widely used for tracking ship movements worldwide. See how MarineTraffic and other developers are using the Google Maps API to bring maps and location content to their users.

Ships play a major role in global commerce, but locating them is not as straightforward as it might seem, even for their owners. That’s a problem if, for example, you’re trying to track your cargo, which is on a containership crossing the Atlantic. It’s even worse if you’re a tanker spilling oil offshore and the nearest coast guard ship can’t be found. At MarineTraffic we aim to solve that problem. What began as an experiment in 2007 has become the most popular vessel tracking service in the world. We’ve seen our website traffic double in the past two years to a peak of 6.2 million monthly active users lately.

A key component to maritime data is geography. You would think that mapping ships as they traverse the world’s waterways and oceans would be a no-brainer, but until the introduction of AIS (Automatic Identification System) in shipping and the launch of MarineTraffic, such a capability was not available for the masses. Today, using the Google Maps API we are able to overlay data we get from ships around the globe onto an easy-to-use map with the help of Google’s intuitive mapping platform.

We worked with Google Maps partner Ancoris to set up the mapping service. Our maps use the Google Maps API to plot shipping movement around the world. The data is acquired by our proprietary, global AIS receivers network. This way, we collect radio frequency signals from transponders aboard vessels and display them on the MarineTraffic website and our mobile apps. We offer Density Maps on top of the API to show, for example, which routes tankers are taking versus cruise ships.

Geofencing is used to keep track of distances between vessels and record arrivals and departures at ports. A variety of other types of information are available on top of our maps in layers, such as wind speed, temperatures, photos and more besides.

The good thing about Google is that it makes it easy for developers to port data in through their API and, above all, the high availability of the service, which is always there, no matter how big the spike in traffic is.

Google Maps has proven to be very reliable, thoroughly supporting MarineTraffic as an essential tool for maritime professionals and marine enthusiasts. Using Google Maps, we are able to provide a valuable service to the general public and commercial organisations, filling a need that is highlighted by the rapid growth of our business. Google Maps is helping to put ships on the map!

Posted by Bilal Karim, Lead Geoweb Analyst, MyHEAT

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Bilal Karim, Lead Geoweb Analyst for MyHEAT, a commercial energy mapping product spun off the HEAT research project at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. See how other forward-thinking organizations are investing in mapping technology and transforming their business: Maps are Going Google.

If you get winter temperatures around -20°F, like we do in Calgary, keeping your house warm while saving energy — and reducing heating costs — is a high priority. As a former master’s degree candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of Calgary, I worked with Dr. Geoffrey J. Hay, who came up with the idea of quantifying and visualizing the waste heat escaping from homes, communities, and cities in an effort to improve urban energy efficiency. If residents could click on a map and see the inefficient areas of their homes, they could take steps to lock heat inside the house, where it belongs. And so the Heat Energy Assessment Technologies (HEAT) project was born.

Our research team brainstormed how to use detailed airborne thermal imagery to map the energy efficiency of Calgary homes. We developed a number of multi-scale maps and metrics, including “HEAT Scores” which we assign to houses and neighborhoods so residents can compare their homes’ energy efficiency to their neighbors’. To showcase these levels of detail, we implemented the Google Maps API. In particular, the Google Maps API allowed the maps to be user-friendly, included useful customization, and built on user’s prior knowledge, experience, and familiarity with the Google Maps products.

Here’s what we did:

• We deployed custom styling using the Google Maps API to choose our own colors for the base map. The thermal maps already have many hues to indicate heat efficiency, from blue to orange to red, so we picked neutral shades of gray for the base maps to establish a visual balance.

• We integrated code from the Google Maps Utility Library to display information to homeowners in three tabs. These tabs show residents (a) their home’s HEAT score, (b) a thermal image of the home showing “Hot Spots” where the most heat is escaping, and (c) estimated savings and reductions in greenhouse gases based on heating with different fuel types.

• We also integrated the Google Maps Street View from the Google Maps API. The Street View images show a great amount of detail, linking our colored thermal images for each home, to allow residents to figure out where heat might be escaping – like through sliding-glass porch doors, windows, or from their roof.

• Since we began this project, we used KML Layers to sub-divide the larger city and community maps into tiles, which helps our application load faster. However, these will soon be replaced by new additions to the Google Maps API such as GeoJSON for better performance.

• We also invite HEAT users to upload information about their roofing materials so we could refine their HEAT scores and provide better information back into our energy models. So far, about 2,600 people have volunteered this data.

We’re currently showing 37,914 houses in 29 different communities, and plan to expand to nearly 300,000+ single-dwelling homes in Calgary. In the meantime, we’ve launched MyHEAT, a startup company that will offer commercial products to utilities and municipalities based on our HEAT project. These new products, aimed at utilities and municipalities, will also use the Google Maps API to help people stay warmer every winter.

Posted by Rachel Barton, Product Manager, Google Drive

(Cross-posted on the Google Drive blog.)

Browsers are pretty amazing things. Before, if you wanted to do any serious computing, you’d have to install software onto your computer. But these days, most of that can be done right from within the browser. For example, you can use Google Drive to preview files directly in Gmail, create and share Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, and even edit other file types like Microsoft Office documents without installing a single thing on your hard drive.

But here’s the catch: when it comes to browsers and installed applications working well together, they aren’t quite on the same page. To change that, today we’re launching a new extension for Chrome that lets you open files from Google Drive directly into a compatible application installed on your computer. This includes apps like advanced image and video editing software, accounting and tax programs, or 3D animation and design tools. So, no matter what you keep in Drive, using the web to access and manage files doesn’t mean you’re limited to using applications that only work in your browser.

To get started, install the latest version of the Drive app for Mac or PC (version 1.18) and sync your files. Then, visit Google Drive in your Chrome browser (make sure you’re on the new Google Drive). Finally, right-click on the file and select “Open with” to see a list of compatible applications on your computer that can open it. For example, you can choose to open a PDF file with Adobe Reader, or a .psd with Photoshop, make your edits and save back changes to Drive which will sync across all your devices and other collaborators.

This extension will be rolling out over the next several days. Learn more in the Help Center.

Posted by Ganesh Shankar, Product Manager, Google Drive for Android

(Cross-posted on the Google Drive Blog.)

Google Drive makes it easy to keep your stuff safe and accessible from any device, but it doesn’t stop there. We want you to easily find and share your documents, photos, and PDFs with others. So, in addition to a Material Design facelift, the latest update for Android gives you new ways to add, locate, and share from Drive.

Improved Search
The search tool makes it even easier to find the content you’re looking for by providing updated results as you type each letter into the search box.

Better Sharing
Now, you can add a custom message when you share a file so your collaborators know why you sent it—for example, you can add a note asking for feedback. You can also turn on link sharing to make the file “public” and set access to view, comment, or edit. This automatically copies the link to the clipboard and allows you to paste it wherever you want.

Enhanced PDF Viewer
A new PDF viewer lets you find, select and copy text in PDFs, plus, it’s built right into Drive so you don’t need to launch another app.

Look for these updates to roll out over the next several days. If you don't have the Google Drive app, you can download it from Google Play.

Posted by Sanjeev Kumar, Group CIO and Group President - Business Excellence, Adhunik Group

Editor's note: Today’s post comes from guest blogger Sanjeev Kumar, Group CIO and Group President – Business Excellence of Adhunik Group, a conglomerate in India with businesses in mining, steel and power. Read Adhunik Group’s full story here.

The name of our business is both a moniker and a reflection of our philosophy: just as 'adhunik' means 'cutting-edge' in Hindi, the Adhunik Group is always looking for new ways to innovate, both in creating better products and services and in making our operations more efficient. Our focus on staying ahead is the key to our success. We are one of the fastest-growing conglomerates in India, overseeing more than 15 mines, three steel plants, 1 merchant power generation unit and 14 offices around the world.

Time is money for the Adhunik Group. Our businesses operate round-the-clock, so project delays, mechanical or IT based, can cost us almost US$1 million a day in penalties and costs. We’re always looking for reliable technology solutions that can improve our business operations.

We adopted cloud computing in 2010, but continued to look for more cost-effective, innovative alternatives as we grew. If we had better visibility into our operations, we could accelerate project delivery and make decisions faster. What we needed was a reliable, intuitive platform in line with our culture of productivity. We found our solution in Google Apps for Work, and moved over with help from our partner, MediaAgility.

We felt the benefits immediately. Our employees feel better connected across the organisation with Google Apps for Work, and are able to respond faster to each other. They’re now more energised and showing much higher morale. The numbers speak for themselves: Google Apps for Work is 70 percent cheaper than our previous solution and yet delivers up to a 15 percent increase in productivity. We also see further cost savings because of its reliability and effectiveness. There’s no need for frequent servicing, IT support or customisation.

The technology has completely transformed the way we work. Teams spread across different business units and locations use Google Sites as an internal project management portal to help them work together, track progress and share ideas. The added visibility provided by Google Sites means that everyone can look for ways to improve project effectiveness and optimise timelines. Today, project timelines are more predictable, so we don’t have to deal with penalties from project delays. Instead of sharing files over email, we now store them in Google Drive, where team members can work on them together at the same time.

Customer relationships have significantly improved too with the help of Google Hangouts. We connected cameras that were already installed at our manufacturing sites around the world to Google Hangouts to show customers how we work in real-time. Our customers love it. They can now see the progress of their orders and be assured that their items will arrive on time. This unique capability helps us stand out in a crowded market.

Google Apps for Work has raised our efficiency levels. With Google Apps for Work driving innovation in the company, Adhunik Group can now truly live up to our name.

Posted by Brian Peterson and John Rector, co-founders, Switch Communications

(Cross-posted on the Google Cloud Platform blog)

Today’s guest bloggers are Brian Peterson and John Rector, co-founders of Switch Communications, a San Francisco-based voice communications startup.

When companies first started using business phones, work was a place you went; today, work is a thing you do, whether you’re at your desk or in transit. Yet the business phone hasn’t evolved to work the way that you do. With today’s mobile worker in mind, we created Switch.co, a business phone system built in the cloud, from the ground up. With Switch.co, you can receive calls on any device, whether it’s your desktop through the Chrome app, on mobile with the Android or iOS apps, or even your old desk phone (if you really, really want to). You can even switch seamlessly between devices, so if you start a call on your cell in your car, you can transfer it to your desk when you get into the office without having to hang up then dial back in.

On top of that, Switch.co is designed specifically for Google Apps for Work users: given its rich set of APIs, Google Apps is deeply integrated into the app, allowing users to view recent Gmail messages, see upcoming Calendar events, and access recently shared Docs while in the context of a conversation. You can even launch a Hangout directly from a call. We know Google Apps admins expect setup and management to be easy, so we’ve ensured you can get started with Switch.co over your lunch break.

We built Switch.co for Google Apps users because we’re such heavy Google users ourselves: Switch.co runs on Google App Engine and our team relies on Google Apps internally to keep business running smoothly and efficiently. Because many of our employees work remotely, it’s vital that we can access information at any time and on any device, then collaborate in real-time, no matter where we are. With single sign-on, we can access all the Google products we need with just one log-in; with Google Drive, we can store and share all of our files in one place; and with Google Sheets and Google Docs, we can work together on projects without worrying about out of date attachments.

Drive is particularly powerful in enabling our design and engineering teams to easily share and centralize the many assets required to take a idea from a concept to launch. We deal with a ton of huge files – hi-res graphics, professional grade videos, Adobe Illustrator files — and the ability to store and share them from Drive makes working together so much more seamless. Not only are these files too big for email, but they’d also otherwise splinter into countless versions distributed throughout our employees’ individual hard drives. Plus, the files are backed up by Google so we know they won’t get lost, and they’re centralized in one system, so we don’t have to worry about sensitive data leaving our company’s domain. And given that Google got its start as a search company, being able to search by document name or the copy within a file makes finding what you need easy and fast.

We rely on Google Sheets for our highly collaborative projects, like launch planning. Our entire calendar for the development and promotion of Switch.co, for example, was created and constantly updated in a Google spreadsheet. That way, our marketing and PR teams can access the latest version of the go-to-market plan whenever they need it.

We couldn’t have launched Switch.co without the power of Google Apps for Work enabling us to collaborate and work with the flexibility that a fast-paced startup needs. Google Apps for Work does for Switch Communications what Switch.co does for callers everywhere — it enables you to be agile, connected, and always on the go.

Posted by Rytis Vitkauskas, Co-founder and CEO of YPlan

Editor's note: From the typewriter to the propelling pencil to our favorite, the world wide web, inventors and innovators from the United Kingdom have brought us brilliant advances that have changed the way we work all around the world. Over the next few weeks, we’ll share a handful of stories from disrupters and trailblazers in the UK who are using Google Apps for Work to support their mission while growing at faster and faster speeds. Today we hear from Rytis Vitkauskas, co-founder and CEO of YPlan, a mobile app that lets users discover amazing experiences they can do that same night.

For many, planning a night out on the town means grabbing the local weekly newspaper and thumbing through it to find entertainment and club listings. My co-founder Viktoras Jucikas and I think there’s a better way to plan an exciting night out with our mobile app. YPlan provides curated entertainment listings for London, Edinburgh, New York, San Francisco and Las Vegas, and gives our users the ability to easily buy tickets with two taps on a smartphone. The app has surpassed one million downloads to date and our company has swelled to 60 employees. Growing rapidly, we’ve learned some valuable lessons. The following are five insights that might help business leaders stay focused and keep momentum when growing their business.

1. Identify a real problem — the more personal the better — then try to fix it
YPlan started as a solution to solve a personal problem. My co-founder Viktoras and I previously worked in finance but quit our jobs to travel to San Francisco to find inspiration. In San Francisco, we found it challenging to easily find things to do on our free nights. There wasn’t a central destination to find events and book tickets. So we decided to create an app to solve that problem.

2. Model early and often 
In the early stages of our business idea, we came up with 50 different project ideas before finally settling on YPlan. We constructed a business model, subjected it to an intense process of testing, then eventually scrapped it and started over. When we returned back to London we started the concept for YPlan. We conducted user testing that included Viktoras and I running around to make sure people had their tickets on time (we hadn’t finished the e-ticket mechanism by that point). Testing heavily during the first few months highlights problems you might not have anticipated and gives you the opportunity adapt your product accordingly.

3. Growth stems from your culture and early DNA 
From early on, we established a culture of creativity, collaboration and a relentless focus on our customers, which has been a foundation for our future growth. From the first day we stopped negative office patterns of blaming and arguing, and instilled frequent communication, positive reinforcement and team problem-solving. Our primary focus is to deliver the best experience for our users and our employees tackle that task creatively on a daily basis.

4. Communication and collaboration fuels growth 
YPlan’s success is largely due to successful collaboration and integration with our partners. With our teams working in at least three time zones simultaneously, Google Drive allows us to collaborate globally in real-time. It’s our central communication hub for content sharing and project collaboration. Having files accessible from anywhere on a mobile device is big plus. This has enabled seamless working and communication with our local teams, which has directly affected our global success and allowed us to expand.

5. Growth opportunities start with the user 
When surveying growth options, look to your users and learn from that data. We’re constantly analysing the data we have on our existing users to see how we can improve our services. At any one time we have two thousand versions of the app running in parallel, undergoing a highly selective process of A/B testing, which means the app is constantly being refined. Closely studying our user data led to us introducing “collections.” We knew people wanted to choose from a wide variety of events, but had to present numerous selections in a way that wasn’t a boring list of options. By adapting our interface to meet the needs of users, we now provide a curated experience, which in turn leads to consistently high retention rates after download.

Posted by Ego Obi, Global Lead of Access for Education in Emerging Markets

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

What if students and teachers from around the world could work on projects together in real-time without ever leaving their classrooms? Pope Francis recently joined students in Australia, Cameron, Israel, Turkey and South Africa for a Hangout on Air to celebrate the launch of Scholas―a new education initiative sponsored by the Vatican that aims to connect 500,000 schools across the world to enable e-learning and remote teaching using Google tools.

A social component of the platform uses Google Hangouts to connect students and teachers globally, so if students at a middle school in Ghana want to learn what it’s like to be a student their age in Peru, they can teach each other through an open and collaborative environment. Schools can also post shared projects on the platform, like the “40 Days of Hope” project by Seton Catholic High School, which aims to raise $3,000 to provide parasite medication and feed 40 people for a year in Nicaragua.

Later this year, Scholas will integrate more tools through Google Apps for Education and Classroom to create an even more personalized learning experience for each student. The Scholas platform aims to foster education through dialogue because when students can share and communicate openly, there’s no limit to what they can learn.

Posted by Jeanne Anderson, SVP of product at DogVacay

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Jeanne Anderson, SVP of product at DogVacay. Based in Santa Monica, Calif., DogVacay is a service that connects dog owners with local pet sitters. Learn how the company partnered with Google Maps to deliver localized pet sitting services.

At DogVacay, we help people find the perfect home away from home for their dogs while they are away. People across the U.S. spend billions of dollars on boarding for their furry friends, and we want to offer a better solution than current commercial options. The way we see it, dogs are happier in a loving home where they receive customized care, rather than sitting in a crate at a kennel with limited human contact.

Our business has struck a nerve — we have more than 15,000 hosts in 3,000 cities across the U.S. and Canada since we launched in 2012. To help pet owners find the best host nearby for their pooches, we use Google Maps.

With Google Maps, which we integrated with the help of SADA Systems, DogVacay allows pet owners to locate hosts nearby simply by typing in a zip code or street address. Potential hosts are pinpointed on an interactive map linking to profiles that detail the pet sitter’s experience, certifications, price and other details. Many of our guests have told us they like the ability to quickly find sitters nearby — sometimes only blocks away. Our Concierge Team has even helped people find dog sitters in their own buildings in New York City.

There’s an enormous number of dog lovers who want to provide excellent care and a loving home for animals while their owners are away. DogVacay and Google Maps makes it easier than ever to find these hosts right in the owner’s neighborhood. In addition, we’ve made the search options extremely customizable to our customer’s needs, offering services to elderly or sick dogs in need of special care.

We’re always looking for ways we can expand our offering, and Google Maps plays a big role in providing hyperlocal services that help keep dogs (and their owners) happy!

Posted by: Alan Warren, Vice President, Engineering

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog, Google Drive Blog and the Google for Education Blog.)

Imagine trying to keep track of another person’s real-time edits in a document—using only your ears. Or trying to create a table from spreadsheet data—without being able to clearly see the cells. Whether you’re backing up a file in Drive or crunching some numbers in Sheets, it should be easy to bring your ideas to life using Google’s tools. But if you’re blind or have low vision, you may need to rely on assistive technologies such as screen readers and Braille displays—and that can make working in the cloud challenging. While screen readers can parse static webpages (like this blog) relatively easily, it’s much harder for them to know what to say in interactive applications like Google Docs because the actions they need to describe are much more complex.

With these reasons in mind, today we’re announcing some improvements to Drive and all our editors—Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, and Forms—specifically designed with blind and low-vision users in mind.
Improved screen reader support in Drive and Docs 
In June, we introduced a new version of Drive that’s sleeker, easier to navigate and much faster. But just as importantly, the new Drive also includes better keyboard accessibility, support for zoom and high-contrast mode and improved usability with screen readers.

Across Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings and Forms, you’ll find that it’s now much easier to use a screen reader, with nicer text-to-voice verbalization and improvements to keyboard navigation. You’ll also notice other updates, including:

• Support for alt text on images in Docs, so you can tell a screen reader what they should say to describe an image 
• Better support for using a keyboard to edit charts and pivot tables in Sheets 
• Additional screen reader improvements specifically for Docs, Sheets and Slides, including support for spelling suggestions, comments and revision history 
• The ability to quickly search the menus and perform actions in Docs, Slides and Drawings (and soon Sheets and Forms)—even if you don’t know the action’s key sequence 
  

Collaborating with others is easier too: in Docs, Sheets, Slides or Drawings, screen readers announce when people enter or leave the document, and you’ll now also hear when others are editing alongside you.

Refreshable Braille display support 
If you use a Braille display, you can now use it to read and enter text in Docs, Slides and Drawings. Even if you don't use a Braille display, with Braille support, your screen reader’s settings for character echoing are automatically followed. Enabling Braille also dramatically reduces the lag between when you press a key and when it’s announced by your screen reader, and improves the announcements of punctuation and whitespace. Learn how to enable Braille support in our Help Center.

Get up and going faster
The first time you use a screen reader or a Braille display, getting up to speed can be a daunting task. But it’s simpler with new step-by-step guides for Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms and Drawings.

You can also access the in-product “Help” menu at any time without interrupting your work, or use the updated shortcut help dialog to easily search through keyboard shortcuts if you don’t remember them.

Finally, we’re offering phone support for Google Drive accessibility questions. If you get stuck, visit support.google.com/drive to request a phone call and someone from our team will reach out to you.

What’s next
As Laura Patterson, CIO, University of Michigan puts it, "The latest improvements in Google Drive and Docs for users of assistive technology are a major step forward and exemplify Google's commitment to making their products available to all members of our community.” We’re pleased the community has welcomed these improvements, and will continue to work with organizations to make even more progress.

Everyone, regardless of ability, should be able to experience all that the web has to offer. To find out more about our commitment to a fully accessible web, visit the new Google Accessibility site at www.google.com/accessibility.

Posted by Jon Spruce, Google Programme Leader, Travis Perkins plc

Editor's note: A few weeks ago, we announced Google Drive for Work, a new premium offering for businesses that includes unlimited storage, advanced audit reporting and new security controls. To celebrate the announcement and show how Drive helps businesses around the world, we’re sharing a few stories from a handful of customers using Drive (and the rest of the Google Apps suite) in innovative ways. Today’s guest blogger is Jon Spruce, Google Programme Leader for Travis Perkins plc, the UK’s leading company in the builders’ merchant and home improvement market and largest supplier to the building and construction market. See what other organisations that use Google Drive have to say.

Travis Perkins plc supplies building materials for projects small and large across the United Kingdom, from home improvements to Terminal 5 at Heathrow airport. Creating quotes for a variety of different jobs and tasks, then making sure the materials get where they need to be, requires serious coordination. We chose Google Apps to enable collaboration across our 2,000 locations, 24,000 people and 17 different businesses. And since making the switch, Google Drive in particular has played a significant role in making our company operate smoothly and efficiently: we use Google Drive to store and share more than 1.3 million documents, which has reduced travel, email traffic and the time taken to get things done.

Before Google Drive, the process of creating quotes was disjointed and confusing. We’ve made a series of acquisitions over the last 30 years, and with each one, also acquired a new technology and system, which left us with a mismatched set of storage and document creation products. People created their own ‘kingdoms’ of data, and expected they’d be able to share information – with very limited success. With Google Drive, we can deliver quotes to customers at a steady pace, while making sure that employees across the Travis Perkins Group can provide and access the most up-to-date information at any time.

Drive has also taken the sluggishness out of the quote pipeline. In one of our businesses, BSS Industrial, we start by creating a document about the project at the customer’s local branch, then create a shared folder, and add in blueprints, estimates, and photos – anything the rest of the team needs to build and fulfill the quote.

As employees locate and price supplies or visit the building site to take precise measurements, everyone can update the same files. We no longer worry about which email or spreadsheet is correct, since we all work together on the same project quotes. Drive gives us an accurate, up-to-date picture of our progress at any given moment.