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Ask a Techspert: What’s a subsea cable?

Wow, 400! Does the world need more of them?Yes! Telecommunications providers alongside technology companies are still building them around the world. At Google, we invest in subsea cables for a few reasons: One, our Google applications and Cloud services keep growing. This means more network demand from people and businesses in every country around the…

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Wow, 400! Does the world need more of them?

Yes! Telecommunications providers alongside technology companies are still building them around the world. At Google, we invest in subsea cables for a few reasons: One, our Google applications and Cloud services keep growing. This means more network demand from people and businesses in every country around the world. And more demand means building more cables and upgrading existing ones, which have less capacity than their modern counterparts.

Two, you cannot have a single point of failure when you’re on a mission to connect the world’s information and make it universally accessible. Repairing a subsea cable that goes down can take weeks, so to guard against this we place multiple cables in each cross section. This gives us sufficient extra cable capacity so that services aren’t affected for people around the world.

What’s your favorite fact about subsea cables?

Three facts, if I may!

First, I love that we name many of our cables after pioneering women, like Curie for Marie Curie, which connects California to Chile, and Grace Hopper, which links the U.S., Spain and the U.K. Firmina, which links the U.S., Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, is named after Brazil’s first novelist, Maria Firmina dos Reis.

Second, I’m proud that the cables are kind to their undersea homes. They’re environmentally friendly and are made of chemically inactive materials that don’t harm the flora and fauna of the ocean, and they generally don’t move around much! We’re very careful about where we place them; we study each beach’s marine life conditions and we adjust our attachment timeline so we don’t disrupt a natural lifecycle process, like sea turtle nesting season. For the most part they’re stationary and don’t disrupt the ocean floor or marine life. Our goal is to integrate into the underwater landscape, not bother it.

And lastly, my favorite fact is actually a myth: Most people think sharks regularly attack our subsea cables, but I’m aware of exactly one shark attack on a subsea cable that took place more than 15 years ago. Truly, the most common problems for our cables are caused by people doing things like fishing, trawling (which is when a fishing net is pulled through the water behind a boat) and anchor drags (when a ship drifts without holding power even though it has been anchored).

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5 ways our latest Gemini models are changing retail

Here are five ways Gemini models and generative AI are helping retailers modernize their businesses. Source

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Here are five ways Gemini models and generative AI are helping retailers modernize their businesses.

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Inspiring the next generation of women engineers

Editor’s note: Google and Girlguiding are building on their partnership with the launch of new co-created AI activities and badges, designed to help girls understand how AI-powered tools work and encourage more girls and young women across the country to explore STEM subjects. Nicole McWilliams, Engineering Director, Android Large Screens at Google shares why it’s…

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Editor’s note: Google and Girlguiding are building on their partnership with the launch of new co-created AI activities and badges, designed to help girls understand how AI-powered tools work and encourage more girls and young women across the country to explore STEM subjects. Nicole McWilliams, Engineering Director, Android Large Screens at Google shares why it’s important for more girls and young women to learn about technology and AI.When I was a little girl, my father and I would spend our weekends in his garage taking apart and rebuilding household appliances, like our toasters and alarm clocks. I found the process fascinating. It sparked my interest in understanding why these appliances worked this way, and brainstorming tweaks that might improve them. I’d always loved working with gadgets, so when selecting my university course I thought it made perfect sense to study engineering…until I was told that it might not.The university admissions team nudged me to consider alternative options, concerned that I might be out of place in such a male dominated field. Now that I lead Android’s large screen engineering teams for Google here in the UK, working to incorporate AI-driven features into our products, it’s hard to imagine that at 17 years old, my ability to excel in a field that I love was called into question, purely because of my gender.Stereotypes still persistWe set up Google’s partnership with Girlguiding in 2018 to shatter these longstanding stereotypes and counter the influence of society’s longstanding biases. While so much has changed since my experience in the 90s, sadly, the discouragement I faced isn’t unique. Girlguiding’s Girls Attitude Survey highlights the fact that many outdated ideas still persist:More than half (52%) of girls between the ages of 11 – 18 still feel like STEM subjects are for boys.42% of girls feel that there aren’t enough women role models in STEM.41% of girls are teased for their interest in STEM subjects.We can’t afford for these antiquated assumptions to hold girls back from having the opportunity to shape the AI-powered technologies of the future. AI has the potential to improve how we live, work and interact with the world. From the phones in our pockets to the cars we drive, AI is already everywhere. Technology can be made by anyone, and is for everyone. That’s why we’ve partnered with Girlguiding to empower more girls with the skills needed to create this technology in future.Encouraging more young women to help shape the future of AIThese new activities will showcase how AI can solve real-world problems and encourage the girls to eventually become the innovators and leaders of a technology which is being used to improve health outcomes and tackle climate change. Girls aged 4 – 18 across each of Girlguiding’s sections will learn about generative AI and concepts like machine learning. The activities will enable leaders to demonstrate how AI can boost creativity and gradually build the girls’ confidence in technology.AI Story Writers: Rainbows aged 4 – 7 will work with group leaders to create interactive ‘choose your own adventure’ stories with the help of AI.AI Game Writers: Brownies aged 7 – 10 will work with group leaders to create and play new real-world games with the help of AI.Teach the AI Machine: Guides aged 10 – 14 will explore how machine learning works through a fun real-world game.Accelerate with AI: Rangers aged 14 – 18 will work with group leaders to plan a personalised party or event with the help of AI.We’re excited for over 300,000 Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers across the country to gain valuable insights that will help them in future, whether they decide to build these AI-powered technologies or even just use these tools to achieve their ambitions.Lasting impactBoth the teams at Google and Girlguiding have worked hard to create the sorts of fun and engaging activities that I would have loved to take part in when I was a Brownie. Our hope is that these activities spark an interest in technology for girls across the country, inviting them to challenge and exceed society’s expectations, while inspiring the next generation of female engineers.Check out Girlguiding’s website to learn more about the new AI badge and our other co-created digital discovery activities.

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Google.org’s commitment to Indigenous communities across the Americas

Learn about the Indigenous organizations Google.org has supported this year. Source

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Learn about the Indigenous organizations Google.org has supported this year.

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