Improving finger dexterity for faster web browsing

This is a cross-post from the Google Chrome Blog.

Three weeks ago, we released a new stable build of Chrome which featured our biggest speed improvements to date—a 66 percent lift in JavaScript performance on the V8 benchmark suite.

However, the Chrome browser can only process data as quickly as users can tell it how to do so—i.e., type. In 1946, Stella Pajunas-Garnand set a world record by typing at a blistering 216 words per minute. Once we learned that the average Internet user ambles in at 33 words per minute—just 15.2778 percent of the existing milestone—we decided to conduct our own research into the state of finger speed and performance.

Browsing the web involves two key finger movements: the up-and-down motion of a finger pressing a key and the back-and-forth movement of a finger scrolling the wheel of a mouse. To reach a standard measurement for speed and performance, we combined eight key metrics from both movements to produce the Finger Dexterity Index (FDI), which we’ve mapped below against the V8 Benchmark:

As you can see, there have been relatively few advances in finger dexterity since Chrome’s launch, which is why we’re excited to bring you Chromercise, a new exercise regimen for your hands and fingers. Some existing finger exercise programs focus on upgrading your digits’ cardiovascular strength and musculature; others focus on dexterity. Chromercise’s unique blend of aerobic motion and rhythmic accompaniment covers all of the above while simultaneously tightening and toning your fingers’ actual appearance.

A few words of caution: be sure to stretch before and after your Chromercise workout, and only attempt the complex moves at the end of the workout video after mastering the core movements from the first half. In fact, we strongly encourage finger sweatbands throughout your workout for your comfort and the safety of those around you. And as with any fitness program, don’t forget to consult your physician before committing to a rigorous Chromercise regimen.

To learn more visit Chromercise.com today.

Posted by Chris Wright, certified Chromercise Instructor

Getting Aussie Business Online - in Perth!

Well it isn’t every day that I get to meet the Prime Minister ... but this week we were in Perth to talk about Getting Aussie Business Online with Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy. They were speaking about plans for the NBN and the need for businesses to get online to take advantage of the digital economy.



The PM and the Minister reiterated that two thirds of Australians search online for small business information but only one third of small businesses has a website. The rest are missing out on the benefits of the digital economy because their customers can’t find them. There are 15,000 searches every month for “Perth cafe”.

At Google, we want to make it easy for small businesses to get online and succeed. Which is why we launched Getting Aussie Business Online with MYOB. So far, 5,600 businesses have signed up with a free website, including 500 from Western Australia.

We went to visit one of these businesses with Senator Conroy, Toys in the Park. Owned by Jan Stearne, the shop has been up and running since June last year. The walls are lined with things to fascinate any little person - there are books and games, and some really amazing fairy costumes. If that isn’t enough, there’s a play room as well.

A couple of weeks ago, you could find Jan’s shop by driving past it on Albany Highway. Today, you can find it online at toysinthepark.com.au too. She’d been thinking about getting a website since she opened the shop last year, but like a lot of business owners wasn’t sure where to start, or how much it was going to cost. Despite (in her own words) ‘not being the best on computers’ she was able to set up a website quickly and easily.

Jan told the Minister that what she liked most about her website through Getting Aussie Business Online was that she could take things one step at a time, and learn how to use the website at her own pace. ‘Before people would ring me to ask me where my shop was,’ Jan said. ‘Now they can just look at my address and find me right away’.



To set up a website, all you need is an ABN and your phone number. It easy to do, it only takes 15 minutes and you get a free website for a year and your own free .com.au domain name for two years. Once you’re up and running, you can keep adding to your site, just like Jan did - photos, a logo or banner, links to social networks or a map. You’ll receive tips and education along the way to learn how to make the best out of your presence online, all while being visible to customers turning to the Internet to find information about your business.

Bora Toska, Small Business Marketing, Google Australia

Earth Hour 2011: Go Beyond the Hour!

At 8:30pm tomorrow night, Saturday 26 March, lights in more than 130 countries across the planet will switch off for Earth Hour. Earth Hour events are being run around the world - including by students in Morocco, Girl Scouts in America, bank staff in Qatar and researchers in the Antarctic.



This year, Earth Hour is challenging people to go “Beyond the Hour” by committing to actions that will help make the world a better place, and to sharing these actions with the world via messages, pictures and videos online.

We're supporting Earth Hour with the global campaign with a number of Google tools and services, including a YouTube platform to promote the Beyond the Hour campaign and to share our commitments to action beyond the hour with people around the world, and with Google Grants - in-kind advertising for non-profits - to increase awareness fo Earth Hour online.

At Google Australia, we’re also committed to going Beyond the Hour. One area where we are reducing our carbon emissions is by cutting back on use of taxis and petrol-fuelled cars. Instead we're using two iMiev electric vehicles for daily travel and commuting in and around Sydney. Googlers can book these vehicles in our Google Apps Calendar system and travel pollution-free to meetings and events.

Please join us and show your support for Earth Hour by switching off your lights at 8:30 pm tomorrow, Saturday 26 March, and be sure to share your actions Beyond the Hour!

Posted by Justin Baird, Innovationist

Broadband data maps, brought to you by M-Lab

This is a cross-post from the Google Public Policy Blog.

In 2009 we helped a group of researchers and industry partners launch Measurement Lab (M-Lab), an open platform for broadband measurement tools. Over the past two years, M-Lab has grown significantly – more than 300 terabytes of data from over half a billion tests are now publicly available.

M-Lab tools help an individual understand the performance of one’s own broadband connection, but making sense of that much data in the aggregate is more complicated. That’s why we’re happy to announce that, working with M-Lab, we have developed a set of maps to help investigate such a huge dataset using Google’s Public Data Explorer.

The visualizations show measured median upload and download speeds as measured by M-Lab tools across the United States, Europe, and Australia, and you can drill down to city-level aggregates. You can also view to what extent speeds are limited by problems with users’ network connections or with their computers (or other devices).

The maps are built entirely on open data collected by Network Diagnostic Tool (NDT), an open source tool developed by Internet2 and widely deployed. The platform, the tool, and the data are all open – which means the Internet community can vet the measurement methodology, perform independent analysis of the same data, and build their own visualizations. In fact, the M-Lab data provide much more information that what’s presented in these visualizations, and we hope that our effort will help drive future research in this area.

On Wednesday, the Open Technology Initiative will be hosting a panel discussion on M-Lab in Washington, D.C. In a keynote, Vint Cerf will explain how M-Lab is helping analyze broadband performance and promote good science. For those who can’t attend in person, the event will be live-streamed via the web, starting at 10:30am, EST.

Posted by Tiziana Refice, Network Researcher, and Meredith Whittaker, Program Manager

Searching for cake?

In my view, celebrating is always better with cake. So whether it’s a celebration with my team, a friend’s 40th or cupcakes to cheer someone up, there’s a good chance that some time soon I’ll be joining the ranks of the 15,000 or so Sydneysiders every month who search on Google for “cakes sydney”.

Two weeks ago, Cakes by Nadia in Illawong, NSW - like two-thirds of Australian businesses - didn’t have a website. So if I’d been searching, Cakes by Nadia wouldn’t have turned up in my search.

Today, Nadia is one of the more than 4,000 businesses who are now visible online to the 14 million Australian consumers who are searching for local business information after setting up a website with Getting Aussie Business Online.


Nadia is a mother of four who owns and operates her own cake-making business. She does a lot of the work for her business at night while the kids are in bed. Like a lot of small business owners, Nadia works very hard to create beautiful products and to look after her customers. But without a website, all the work she does to promote her business falls to her - and she has enough on her plate.

Now Nadia’s website can do some of her work for her - customers can see if Nadia has what they’re looking for and easily get in touch. She’s created a photo gallery of her cakes - from cakes in pretty pastel colors for baby showers to artful cupcakes with seashells and starfish for a beach party. She has a list of events, like the upcoming Sydney Bridal Fair, where she’ll be presenting. She has links to her Twitter and Facebook pages. And of course all the basics are there too - phone number, email, a map and opening hours.

To get your business online - for free, and in about 15 minutes - visit www.gettingbusinessonline.com.au. Business owners need to enter their ABN, a phone number, and a few details about their business such as street address, preferred contact method, and opening hours. Your website is then available immediately.

Right now, I’m plotting out the drive to Illawong - those Butterfrosting and Rose Cupcakes look perfect for my next-door neighbour's baby shower!

Posted by Claire Hatton, Head of Local Business, Google Australia & New Zealand

Google joins the 2011 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras

We were in the mood for dancing. Along with a lot of other people!

This year, a group of Googlers joined hundreds of others in marching (and dancing) along Oxford and Flinders Streets as part of the 2011 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras. It was the first time we’d had a float in the parade, and the first time we had been a major sponsor of the Mardi Gras Festival.

We also presented a panel session on workplace diversity at Queer Thinking, and joined 70,000-odd picnickers at the Mardi Gras Fair Day.

Google is a company that supports its LGBT employees, taking a public stand on issues that are important to our community. This is not the first year that Google has been involved in major LGBT events, and it will certainly not be the last.

We're already looking forward to next year's festival!

Posted by Verne Smith, Mardi Gras Coordinator, Google Australia & New Zealand.

Digitising The Dawn

We’ve been commemorating International Women’s Day for a century, recognising the struggle for women’s rights in Australia and around the world. It’s a proud history, well worth discovering.

A century ago, women discovered the movement for women’s rights through publications like The Dawn. Edited and published by Louisa Lawson, The Dawn was Australia’s first journal produced solely by women, employing ten women at its height, including women printers to run its printing presses. Louisa Lawson was a pioneer for women’s rights. Close to our hearts here at Google, she was also an innovator in information technology, patenting a mailbag fastener.

Today, we discover this rich history in slightly differently ways - we search. This is what Donna Benjamin did, when researching her talk on women in technology for linux.conf.au this year. But she couldn’t find The Dawn anywhere online - she knew it was preserved in libraries around Australia, but it couldn’t be easily accessed and browsed by most Australians. So she decided to do something about it.

By the end of the conference, and with the help of the Australian Women's Archive Project, Donna had launched the #digitisethedawn campaign. Through the campaign, Donna has campaigned to raise the funds to digitise The Dawn - so that it will be preserved electronically in the National Library’s collection and accessible and able to be searched by all.

From Louisa Lawson’s descendants, to Senator Carol Brown from Tasmania, to the Chifley Research Centre, Calyx and WikiMedia, to us here at Google Australia and many others in the community, people around the country have recognised the importance of this project - and donated.

This afternoon, a chapter in this history was opened up to the world. The funds have been raised to digitise The Dawn, and make it accessible and able to be searched by the world.

Through Donna’s own pioneering efforts, we will now be able to discover this important chapter in Australia’s history, and in the history of women’s rights - by searching.

As Donna says,

[The Dawn] was the first publication that gave voice to Australian feminist politics. It is a significant publication and often cited by scholars of history and feminist thought.

It's now in the public domain, so making it available online makes it available to all. As an important primary source for the suffrage movement it might help future scholars rediscover the fight to win women the right to vote, the right to work, and the history of the struggle for equal pay.'

Posted by Alice Boxhall, Software Engineer.

Two Weeks until the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011

This is a cross-post from the YouTube Australia blog.

In just a few days the YouTube Symphony Orchestra arrives in Sydney. The 97 orchestral musicians, winning improvisers, and Michael Tilson Thomas have been hard at work to ensure that their performances in Sydney are nothing short of extraordinary. And to give you a sneak peek, Tourism Australia has flown four winning musicians down under in advance of the full orchestra’s arrival to spend some time with some of Australia’s up and coming musical talent. The pair, Desmond from London, and Luke from NSW have completed a musical track, inspired by their journey:

The YouTube Symphony Orchestra kicks off March 15 for a week-long festival of creativity, technology and the arts. The Grand Finale is nearly sold out, but be sure to pick up your tickets at the Sydney Opera House website for any of the week’s ensemble concerts and the Saturday matinee.



This year, we’ll also be joining an additional YouTuber to jam with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra at a special, pre-finale performance at The Basement. Here’s the winning entry from Qantas’ open mic competition, Zak Gottleib:

Even if you don’t have tickets, be sure to come down to Dawes Point to watch the Opera House sails come to life during the Grand finale performance on 20 March. And stay tuned for more sneak peeks of what’s to come!



Posted by Ernesto Soriano, YouTube Team, just watched Making Tracks: Stu and Sam cycling in Canberra

Getting Aussie Business Online

For an Aussie business these days, having a website is as important as having a phone.

Millions of Australians regularly turn to the Internet to research local shops and services. They start their taxes online; there are 4,000 Google searches every day in Australia for accountants. They go online to remodel their kitchens; there are 12,000 searches every day in Australia for builders. And they look for a nearby cafe to get their morning cup of coffee; there are 30,000 searches every day in Australia for cafes.

Yet two-thirds of Aussie small businesses are invisible to Aussies online. According to research from MYOB Business Monitor, only one in three Aussie small businesses have a website. These businesses tell us they’re not online because it’s too expensive, too complicated, and they just don’t have the time.

Until 9:50am this morning, Terry Randall was one of these small business owners.



But now, Terry has a new website for his excavations business, which means customers can now find him online. Terry is the first of what we hope will be more than 50,000 Aussie businesses to set up a website through Getting Aussie Business Online.

Getting Aussie Business Online is a nationwide campaign from Google and MYOB to give a free website to more than 50,000 Australian small businesses. It’s designed to knock down the common barriers to small businesses getting online by making it easy, quick, and free to set up and maintain a website.



To set-up your website, visit Getting Aussie Business Online and enter your Australian Business Number (ABN), your business phone number, and a few details about your business such as street address and opening hours. Your site can be up and running in 15 minutes. You’ll also get a free .com.au domain for two years and resources to help you add information and features to your website over time.



We’ve long believed in the power of the Internet to help businesses thrive and to help consumers find information quickly and easily. Getting Aussie Business Online makes businesses like Terry’s visible to their customers and, in the long run, improves the Internet for all Australians.

Posted by Claire Hatton, Google Australia’s Head of Local Business