New Zealand Blog
Google news for Kiwis
Indigenous speakers share their languages on Google Earth
Monday, August 12, 2019
Of the 7,000 languages spoken around the globe, 2,680 Indigenous languages—more than one third of the world's languages—are in danger of disappearing. The United Nations declared 2019 the
International Year of Indigenous Languages
to raise awareness about these languages and their contribution to global diversity. To help preserve them, our new Google Earth tour,
Celebrating Indigenous Languages
, shares audio recordings from more than 50 Indigenous language speakers.
“It is a human right to be able to speak your own language,” says Tania Haerekiterā Tapueluelu Wolfgramm, a Māori and Tongan person who works as an educator and activist in Aotearoa--the Māori name for New Zealand--and other Pacific countries. “You don’t have a culture without the language.”
Tania is one of several dozen Indigenous language speakers, advocates and educators who helped create the tour. Thanks to their contributions, people can click on locations meaningful to Indigenous speakers and hear people offer traditional greetings, sing songs, or say common words and phrases in their languages.
The healing power of speaking one’s own language
The people who recorded audio in their languages and connected Google with Indigenous speakers each have their own story about why revitalizing Indigenous languages strikes a chord for them.
For Arden Ogg, director of
Canada’s Cree Literacy Network
, and Dolores Greyeyes Sand, a Plains Cree person and Cree language teacher, the focus is on providing resources for language learners. For Brian Thom, a cultural anthropologist and professor at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, the interest grew out of his work
helping Indigenous communities map their traditional lands
.
Brian asked yutustanaat, a member of the
Snuneymuxw First Nation
and a language teacher in British Columbia, to record the hul’q’umi’num’ language. “Our language is very healing,” says yutustanaat. “It brings out caring in our people and helps our students be strong, because the language comes from the heart.” In her recording,
yutustanaat speaks the traditional hul’q’umi’num’ greeting
: ‘i ch ‘o’ ‘uy’ ‘ul’ or “How are you?”
By using their languages—and sharing them with the rest of the world—Indigenous people create closer connections to a culture that is often endangered or has outright disappeared.
Wikuki Kingi, a Māori Master Carver, recorded traditional chants in Te Reo Māori, an Eastern Polynesian language indigenous to New Zealand. He says, “Speaking Te Reo Māori connects me to my relatives, to the land, rivers, and the ocean, and it can take me to another time and place.”
Ensuring that generations to come will hear their languages
“I do this not for myself, but for my children and grandchildren, so that in the future, they’ll hear our language,” says Dolores,
who recorded audio in her native Plains Cree
.
To ensure that future generations hear and speak Indigenous languages, more needs to be done to support their revitalization. Tania Wolfgramm suggests checking out how her nonprofit organization,
Global Reach Initiative &; Development Pacific
, uses technology to connect far-flung Indigenous people to their traditional communities—like bringing Google Street View to the
remote island of Tonga
. Arden Ogg directs people interested in Indigenous languages to the
Cree Literacy Network
, which publishes books in Cree and English to facilitate language learning. And a
video from the University of Victoria
suggests five ways to support Indigenous language revitalization, such as learning words and phrases using smartphone apps, and learning the names of rivers, mountains and towns in the local Indigenous language.
This initial collection of audio recordings in Google Earth only scratches the surface of the world’s thousands of Indigenous languages. If you’d like to contribute your language to this collection in the future, please
share your interest
.
Post content
Posted by Raleigh Seamster, Program Manager, Google Earth Outreach
New Zealand’s Global Finalist in this year’s Google Science Fair
Friday, July 26, 2019
Not many 19 year olds could explain the technique of biomimetic fog collection for gathering atmospheric water in high altitude and arid environments - let alone define the word “biomimetic”.
Enter budding scientist Jonathan Chan, who has pioneered a piece of study in this field and succeeded in making it into the list of global finalists for the 2018-2019
Google Science Fair
.
The Google Science Fair celebrates the next generation of scientists from around the world. Aiming to inspire teens to solve real-world problems with science, technology, engineering and math. The competition is run online, and open globally to 13-18 year old students to share their ideas with the world. Jonathan is one of 24 global finalists.
Like most young Kiwis participating in their annual science and technology fair, Jonthan developed his project in his final year of high school. He is currently studying Biochemistry at Oxford University in the United Kingdom.
Jonathan will now travel to Google’s head office in Mountain View, his first time travelling to the US, to participate in the final round of judging with the Google Science Fair team. This will culminate with an awards ceremony on 29th July to announce the Grand Prize winner.
Google Science Fair is supported by Scientific American, LEGO® Education, National Geographic, and Virgin Galactic.
More about Jonathan’s Project:
Fog collection is a method of atmospheric water collection used in less economically developed areas of the world located in high-altitude and arid environments. It involves the collision of fog droplets with a mesh, which then coalesce to form larger droplets that drain away and are collected. Certain organisms have directional water-collecting properties that would facilitate this process, such as the cribellate spider web and the cactus spine. Thus, this project aims to incorporate such biomimetic properties into reproducible, industrially applicable 3D-printed fog-collecting meshes and to investigate the fog-collecting efficiency of such meshes.
Posted by The Google Science Fair Team
New Street View Cars to Start the Ultimate Kiwi Roadtrip
Sunday, May 19, 2019
This week three new Street View vehicles will hit the streets in New Zealand, starting with the South Island, to gather updated, higher quality 360-degree imagery.
It’s been nine years since we’ve updated our camera technology, and just as smartphone cameras have dramatically evolved since then, we now have access to improved 360-degree camera technology. These new cutting-edge cameras fitted to our Street View cars will allow us to capture higher quality, sharper imagery and in low light conditions across New Zealand.
Google Maps’ Street View - a global collection of 360 degree imagery - is used millions of times every day by people looking to explore the world, to preview places before they go, or experience places virtually they might never have the chance to visit in person.
Keep your eyes peeled and you may see one of the new cars in your neighbourhood in the coming months. To see where they’ve been and where they’re headed next,
check out this link
. Imagery from their journeys will be made available via Street View later this year.
Posted by Posted By Cynthia Wei, Street View Program Manager, Google Australia and New Zealand.
Privacy Awareness Week 2019
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
Editor’s note: Privacy Awareness Week is an initiative by the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities (APPA). It is held annually to promote awareness of privacy and personal data protection issues.
Whether it’s delivering search results you’re looking for or recommending the quickest route home, data can make Google products more helpful to you. We think it’s important that you have the information you need, to make the choices you want, about your data. That’s why we build easy-to-use
privacy features and controls
into our products.
We made some privacy related announcements last week that we want to highlight during
Privacy Awareness Week
:
One-tap access to your Google Account from all our major products
A few years ago, we introduced
Google Account
to provide a comprehensive view of the information you’ve shared and saved with Google, and one place to access your privacy and security settings. Privacy controls should be easy to find and use - today you’ll see your Google Account profile picture appear in the top right corner across products like Gmail, Drive, Contacts and Pay. To quickly access your privacy controls, just tap on your picture and follow the link to your Google Account.
Auto-Delete Options
We’re also introducing automatic deletion options, which will enable Google users to set a time limit for how long they want some data to be saved. They can choose to automatically delete data from their account after 3 or 18 months. These controls are available now for
Web & App Activity
and they will be launched for
Location History
in the coming weeks.
Your Data in Maps, the Assistant, and more
Late last year, we launched a new feature called Your Data in Search, which puts privacy and security front and centre in Google Search. We’re now making this feature available in Google Maps and the Assistant, with YouTube coming later this month. This provides quick and easy access to the most relevant privacy controls. Any data older than that will be automatically and continuously deleted from your account.
Incognito mode in Google apps
Incognito is a very popular feature in the Chrome web browser and we are bringing this functionality to additional surfaces this year. It’s available in YouTube and is coming soon to Maps and Search. Tap from your profile picture to easily turn it on or off. While using Incognito, a user’s activity - for example the places they search for or navigated to - won’t be linked to their Google account. When users turn off Incognito mode, their apps and devices will be cleared of this history, enabling them to confidently share screens with friends or family.
Chrome privacy enhancements
We’re also updating Chrome to provide users with improved controls for managing cookies and stepping up our efforts to restrict “fingerprinting,” to ensure that users’ privacy choices are respected. You can read more about these changes
here
.
Personalised ads
As part of our work to improve privacy in the ads-supported ecosystem, Google will provide better
visibility into personalised advertising
, and tools for others to do the same. We believe that we can build products and privacy for everyone and we are working to bring a thoughtful and thorough approach to improving user privacy in the ad-supported ecosystem.
Our work on privacy is never done and we will continue to explore new ways for our users to manage their privacy. You can learn more about these updates in our
blogpost
and check out these
5 things you can do right now to stay safer online
.
Posted by Ross Young, Government Relations & Public Policy, Google New Zealand.
Computer science grants for New Zealand educators
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Computer science skills are important across a wide range of industries, from health and science to agriculture or the arts. Equipping teachers with the knowledge, resources, and support to teach computer science has never been more important.
Google continues its support of CS education through the Digital Technologies curriculum in Australia and New Zealand with the 2019
Educator Professional Development Grants
. Past awardees have reached over 15,600 teachers throughout Australia and New Zealand, which in turn, impacts over 390,000 students.
CORE Education
have been providing quality professional development (PD) to teachers around New Zealand since 2003. In 2018, their Google funded PD project used their expertise to run online, accessible workshops for teachers focusing on digital technologies in years 7-10.
Workshop organiser Catherine Johnson said: “For educators to upskill in computational thinking for digital technologies is incredibly challenging”. CORE’s webinars and community of practice “presented both the digital capability, and the curriculum understanding to support this challenging 'middle school' sector, to be able to take the first steps to adopting these future focused pedagogies.”
Over four weeks, 400 teachers from around NZ participated in online webinars and joined a global community, learning how to implement the digital technologies curriculum content and learning to share with their communities and schools more broadly.
One teacher attending the program is now planning to “encourage other subject teachers at the secondary level to do more with digital technologies, and be actively involved in supporting our feeder primary schools to improve the learning of my future students.”
We’re excited to announce the following Awardees, who will continue to motivate and inspire educators around New Zealand.
2019 CS Educator Grants Funding Recipients New Zealand
Auckland University of Technology
CORE Education Ltd
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Congratulations to this year's awardees - we can't wait to see how you make an impact!
Posted by Marie Efstathiou, Program Manager, Engineering Outreach, Google Australia and New Zealand
YouTube Music is Celebrating New Zealand Music Month
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
NZ Music Month
is about celebrating Kiwi music and the incredible artists behind it--so, for May, we’ve decided to join the party and have launched a ‘NZ Music Month 2019’ shelf on
YouTube Music
to make it easier to find and discover homegrown talent.
When listeners visit the YouTube Music app in New Zealand, they will now see Kiwi playlists and artists right on their Home screen. This includes the ‘
New Kiwi Cool
’ playlist, featuring brand new local releases and favourites.
Highlighting Kiwi artists across all genres, you can easily journey from soulful
Broods
to the achingly cool
JessB
, and uncover the best in budding Kiwi artists here to change the face of Kiwi music, including rising star
Bene
(who was also named as one of our
Artists to Watch in 2019
) and emo pop group
Openside
.
YouTube Music is a
music streaming service
with official songs, albums, thousands of playlists and artist radio, plus YouTube’s vast catalogue of remixes, live performances, covers and music videos that you can’t find anywhere else--all simply organised, personalised and in one place.
Head to
YouTube Music
to further explore the world of music. The NZ Music Month shelf will be live for all of May for NZ Music Month.
Posted by Ruuben van den Heuvel, Head of Music Content Partnerships (South East Asia, AU/NZ), YouTube
New Zealand tech startup to benefit from Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge
Monday, April 1, 2019
Last year, we launched the Google News Initiative (GNI) Asia Pacific Innovation Challenge, aimed at strengthening our support of digital innovation and new business models in news organisations.
Through our work and partnership with publishers, it’s clear that reader revenue is key to their financial stability. We want to support innovators in this space—those who are pioneering approaches that involve everything from granting digital currency to subscription-based membership models.
Today, I’m delighted to announce that New Zealand’s very own
PressPatron
will be supported as part of the Innovation Challenge. PressPatron is a platform that aims to support the future of journalism, through a mix of crowdfunding, membership payments and donations. By simplifying the process for supporters to make contributions to their favourite media sites, this kiwi organisations is ensuring the support of readers allows publishers to expand their capacity to report on the stories that matter most.
Within two months of opening up the Innovation Challenge, we received 215 applications from 18 countries. After a rigorous review, a round of interviews and a thorough jury selection process, we ended up providing support to 23 projects in 14 countries—amounting to a total of $3.2 million.
When we
called for applications
, we listed four criteria: impact, feasibility, innovation and inspiration. The winners demonstrated a combination of each.
There were 23 applications that received GNI support, all equally impressive in their own right. Check them out
here
.
Thank you to every organisation who applied. There will be a second round of the APAC GNI Innovation Challenge later this year, and we encourage you all to re-apply. Watch out for details on our
website
.
Posted by Kate Beddoe, Head of Google News Initiative, Asia Pacific
Ethique Changes Consumer Behaviour and helps the planet - one plastic bottle at a time
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
In 2012, Brianne West had a dream to reduce the amount of single use plastic in the cosmetic industry. After experimenting from her kitchen in Christchurch, she formulated, mixed, and moulded by hand the first batches of shampoo and conditioner bars. And that was the beginning of
Ethique
.
Soon after successfully selling her first products in a local community forum, Brianne realised they had potential to reach a global audience through online advertising. Fast forward to 2019, Ethique now sells worldwide via its website and in retail stores in nine countries, employs ten people, and has prevented more than three million plastic bottles - a total of 82.5 tonnes of plastic - from ending up in landfills and our oceans.
Scientists have established that if we continue as we have been, by the year 2050, we’ll have more plastic in the ocean than actual fish. Igniting her entrepreneurial spirit and passion for the environment, Brianne has raised their ambition to save six million plastic bottles in 2019. Significantly contributing to both her local community and the world.
Watch Brianne’s story
to learn more about how Ethique started reaching international customers looking for environmentally friendly products, and
check how
you can also grow your business and reach new customers with Google Ads.
Post content
Posted by Richard Flanagan / Head of Small Business Marketing for Google Australia and New Zealand.
Trekker Waka Maps New Zealand’s Longest River
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
The Google Street View Trekker has travelled down the
Venetian Canals
, the
Colorado River
and
London’s River Thames
, and now it has traversed the length of New Zealand’s longest river. All 425 kilometres of the Waikato River will launch today on Google Street View.
To capture the Waikato River and all its beauty, the Google Street View Trekker was installed on a number of boats to get a unique water perspective. The trip started on board the “Poutiaki” (kindly provided by Waikato Tainui) and concluded with the support of the Taupo Coast Guard RIB.
With training and guidance from our local intrepid trekker and Google Street View Ops Lead in NZ, Matt Jenke, the Waikato River Festival – He Piko He Taniwha team carefully mounted the Trekker system, which weighs around 18 kilograms, onto each boat used throughout the project; then spent over a month collecting imagery from Port Waikato all the way to Lake Taupo.
With 15 camera lenses taking photos every 2.5 seconds, panoramic imagery was captured to create an interactive 360 degree virtual tour now visible for aspiring or armchair travellers across the globe via Google Street View.
Weather, logistics, rapids and hydro dams were some challenges navigated along the way - but with the support of boat owners, volunteer skippers and crew (including the Upper and Lower Waikato Regional Council Harbour Masters), the Waikato River Festival team (and Trekker) were kept safe. With eight dams along the river and at least three sets of rapids making sections of the river inaccessible by boat, supplementary 360 aerial imagery was collected by drone to make sure you don’t miss a centimeter of scenery.
“The realisation of this project required a real collaborative effort from various community stakeholders along the length of the river,” said Craig Muntz, Waikato River Festival Director. “We are extremely thankful for the community support received which has in turn resulted in the production of a community resource that also offers a great platform for sharing the story of the river and our region with nearly every bend on the river having a rich story to tell.”
Take a peek at the full
Waikato River gallery here
before your next trip to the region or to simply learn more about this fascinating stretch of the North Island.
Post content
Posted by Cynthia Wei, Program Manager for Google Street View.
Kiwi Flora for our National Day
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Today as a nation we recognise the 1840 signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, and today’s Google Doodle spotlights the flora unique to our island nation - the silver fern, the Kōwhai and the Pōhutakawa flowers which are emblems of New Zealand’s diverse plant life. Our geographical isolation in the Pacific Ocean means that some 80 percent of the islands’ fern, flower, and tree species are native. What makes this even more special, is that most can be found nowhere else in the world.
For years we’ve worn the silver fern with pride, badging our nation’s uniforms for sports teams or military troops. The silver fern was traditionally seen by Māori as a symbol of strength and resilience and has become a symbol of our national identity and spirit. Practically, the underside of the fern’s leaves can reflect moonlight, and act as a guide through the forest at night for twilight travellers.
The unofficial national flower, the bright yellow blossoms of the Kōwhai tree, act as a sign of the end of winter. But more than just visually stunning, the tree’s bark is renowned for its medicinal properties, useful for treating everything from dandruff to seal bites.
Finally, the Pōhutukawa’s crimson flowers bloom around the holiday season, lending it the name “New Zealand Christmas Tree.” The plant figures prominently in Māori legends as a bridge between the living and the spirit world, and has become a contemporary symbol of home for kiwis here and abroad.
Happy Waitangi Day 2019!
Posted by Google NZ Team>
Labels
android
antarctica
birthday
christchurch
chrome
competition
computer science
CS4HS
digital economy
doodle 4 google
doodles
education
google apps
Google Apps for Business
Google apps for education
google docs
google earth
Google Maps
Google places
Google Search
HR
internet
IT
Lego
livestream
localisation
mobile
navigation
NZ
online advertising
privacy
product launch
real estate
rugby fever
scholarship
schools
science fair
search
search ads
security
street view
students
symphony
traffic
universities
women
workplace culture
youtube
Archive
2019
Aug
Jul
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2018
Dec
Oct
Sep
Jun
May
Feb
2017
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Jul
Jun
May
Mar
Feb
2016
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Jun
May
Apr
Feb
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Feb
Jan
2012
Dec
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Oct
Feed
Give us feedback in our
Product Forums
.
