Two Aussies Go to Venice: Top 10 Films Selected for Your Film Festival

Today, we are one step closer to finding the world’s next great storyteller. Over 15,000 filmmakers entered Your Film Festival but only ten finalists remain, each with the hope of winning $500,000 to produce new content with actor Michael Fassbender, director Ridley Scott and his world class team.

During the past month, 3 million people got involved with Your Film Festival by watching, sharing, and voting for their favorite films. So here in the Google Australia office, we are very proud to announce that two of the finalists are Aussies — Damien Power and Adrian Powers!

Here is the full list of ten finalists:

88:88, Joey Ciccoline & Sean Wilson (USA)
Bat Eyes, Damien Power (Australia)
Cine Rincao, Fernando Grostein Andrade & Fernanda Fernandes (Brazil)  
The Drought, Kevin Slack (USA)
El General, Diego Pino Zamora (Bolivia)
The Guilt, David Victori Blaya (Spain)
North Atlantic, Bernardo Nascimento (United Kingdom)
Super.Full., Niam Itani (Lebanon)
Scruples, Adrian Powers (Australia)
This Time, Ramy EL-Gabry (Egypt)

The finalists will soon travel to Italy where they will have their short films screened at the historic Venice Film Festival. They will also pitch a new project idea to Ridley Scott’s production team who, along with the jury including Michael Fassbender, will ultimately name the grand prize winner at a special ceremony on September 2, 2012, in Venice.  As part of their journey to Venice, Emirates has invited the filmmakers to stopover in Dubai for a series of events celebrating their achievement.  

Join these filmmakers as they travel to Venice and stay tuned to the Your Film Festival channel where we’ll take you behind the scenes, tell you more about the finalists, provide special edition movie posters, and of course, unveil the winner. 



Posted by Lucinda Barlow, Head of marketing, Australia, who recently watched Mens 4x100m Olympic final Sydney 2000

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Calling all Aussie Mappers! Google Map Maker is now available in Australia

Calling all Aussie Mappers! Google Map Maker is now available in Australia

G’day mappers — at last it’s time to share the treasures of the Great Southern Land. Today, Google Map Maker opens its maps to Australia, so you can add your local knowledge to Google Maps for all the world to see.
Help share Australia’s natural gems with tourists and locals alike by drawing the hiking trails through the Eucalypt forests of Tasmania or adding all the campsites surrounding Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Then, once you’re ready for some rest and relaxation, why not map the beach resorts of Kangaroo Island, all the best restaurants along the Coral Sea of Queensland, or your favourite billabong for a day of fishing? You can even add your neighbourhood rugby club before heading off to a game.


Once approved your contributions will appear on Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Maps for mobile, accurately reflecting your real-life neighbourhood. You can even join with other local mappers and use your local expertise to review one another’s contributions to the map. To see examples of what people all around the world are adding in Map Maker, you can watch mapping in real-time.

Hyams Beach comes alive with Google Map Maker

Google Map Maker warmly welcomes the people of Australia to the team of citizen cartographers from 200 countries and regions across the globe as they continue to build the world map. To learn more, subscribe to the Map Maker YouTube Channel and get started mapping today!

Posted by Nilesh Tathawadekar, Software Engineer

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Aussie ads lead the pack on YouTube in 2012

I'm always in the mood for a good Internet "top ten" list. It's even better if there are videos -- so how about a list of the ten ads that have gone biggest on YouTube in Australia so far this year?  


This list is exciting for a couple of reasons. First, it’s clear from the list that the definition of “ad” is expanding. Few of the clips on the list would have been recognized as “ads” ten years ago, but the flexibility of online video has enabled marketers to experiment with the packaging around their message. Second, for the first time ever, a local video actually led the chart: radio personalities Fitzy and Wippa brought home the gold with a parody of “Call Me Maybe,” which they reimagined from the perspective of everyday Aussie blokes. 



Another homegrown ad also cracked the top three--Sam Kekovich scored bronze on behalf of the Meat and Livestock Australia with a music video encouraging the nation to eat more lamb, set to the tune of 90’s pop anthem “Barbie Girl.”

The runaway success of these two videos shows that there’s a huge appetite for Aussie content on YouTube, even when it’s coming as part of a marketing effort: “Call Me Maybe’s” bogan heroes and “Barbie Girl’s” tong-twirling lamb lovers clearly struck a chord with local audiences. It’s a formula that other local advertisers have put to good use, too. Earlier this year, the Institute of Technology (CIT) in Perth recruited local YouTube stars Henry & Aaron to star in a skit-style video commercial for the school, to great success.

These ads have proved that Australian viewers are standing by waiting to reward Aussie creativity. Others marketers would do well to follow their lead. Personally, I’m already looking forward to seeing what familiar faces make the list next time!

Here's the full top 10 for you:
  1. Call Me Maybe parody - Aussie blokes version
  2. Contraband Trailer (Official HD)
  3. Australia Day 2012: "Barbie Girl" (Sam Kekovich v Melissa Tkautz v Justice Crew)
  4. Tomorrowland 2011 | official after movie
  5. Project X' Trailer HD
  6. THE AVENGERS Trailer 2012 Movie - Official [HD]
  7. Prometheus - Official Trailer [TRUE HD]
  8. Talking Tom and Ben News: World Cleanup
  9. Angry Birds Seasons - Year of the Dragon Animation
  10. Iron Sky Official Theatrical Trailer [HD]


Posted by Karen Stocks, Head of YouTube & Display, Australia

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Socialize and grow your blog with Google+

Blogger lets you share your thoughts, grow your readership, and engage with your audience. But we want to make Blogger even better by letting you tap into the growing Google+ community. Today, we’re adding a new “Google+” tab in the Blogger dashboard, so you now have a central place to start growing your blog with Google+. This means you can now:

Connect your blog to a Google+ profile or page
If you blog under your own name, you’ve already been able to associate your blog with your personal Google+ profile.  Starting today, you can now connect your blog to a Google+ page for your brand, business or organization.

Notify followers when you publish, and let them recommend your content
Each time you post on your blog, we'll show you a Google+ share box to let you notify followers that you have new blog content.  If they like what you share, followers can +1 or reshare your post to their own friends on Google+. This ripple effect exposes links to your content to a wider audience.
Build enduring connections with your audience
Adding the Google+ gadget to your blog makes it easy for people to add your profile or page to their circles when they like something you’ve published. Forming connections with readers that last after they've left your blog is essential.  

To get started, click the “Google+” tab in the Blogger dashboard and then the “Upgrade” button. If you’ve already upgraded to Google+, we’ll help you associate your blog with your profile or page.

We'll be introducing more settings on this tab in the future, so stay tuned for additional ways to get more out of Blogger with Google+.  If you have questions, you can learn more in our Help Center.

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Make your mark on Google with Handwrite for Mobile and Tablet Search

Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog


Unlike searching on a desktop or laptop computer, when you're searching on a touch-screen mobile device it’s often inconvenient to type. So we strive to give you a variety of ways to interact with Google, be it by speaking your queries,getting results before you finish typing, or searching by image. Now there’s a new way for you to interact with Google: Handwrite for web search on mobile phones and tablets. 

Say you’re standing on a busy street corner, in a bumpy taxi ride, talking with a friend, or sitting on the couch with your tablet. Handwrite enables you to search by just writing letters with your finger most anywhere on your device’s screen—there’s no keyboard that covers half of the screen and no need for hunt-and-peck typing. 



Getting started is easy: go to Google.com in your mobile browser, tap on “Settings” at the bottom of the screen and enable “Handwrite.” Note that after you've saved the setting, you may need to refresh the homepage to see the feature.

On tablets, the Search settings are available as an option behind the gear icon.

Once the feature is enabled, tap the Handwrite icon on the bottom right corner of your screen to activate the writing surface. Write a few letters and you’ll see autocomplete options appear below the search box. If one of the options is what you’re looking for, just tap it to search. For longer queries, you can continue writing and use the arrows next to the autocompletions to move the right one into the search box. Since you can write anywhere, you don’t have to look back and forth repeatedly from the keyboard to the search box. 

For more tips and tricks on how to use Handwrite, see our Help Center article. To make accessing Google.com faster, be sure to bookmark it and add it to your home screen.

We designed Handwrite to complement rather than replace typing: with the feature enabled, you can still use the keyboard at any time by tapping on the search box. Handwrite is experimental, and works better in some browsers than others—on Android devices, it works best in Chrome. For now, we’ve enabled Handwrite for iOS5+ devices, Android 2.3+ phones and Android 4.0+ tablets—in 27 languages. 

Have fun with this new way of searching!

Posted by Rui Ueyama, Software Engineer

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The A-Z of LEGO Build with Chrome

Less than a month ago, we launched our latest Chrome experiment, Build with Chrome, which uses the latest WebGL 3D technology to bring the delight of building LEGO creations together online.

More than one million builders have explored the new world of LEGO creations downunder and published 66,000 builds, demonstrating the possibilities of the web as a creative canvas. These builds are so creative and inspiring we wanted to call out a few from A to Z:

A) All Blacks flag

B) beachfront

C) Canada

D) dog

E) Esher

F) Fort Denison

G) garden

H) helicopter

I) igloo

J) jetty

K) kiwi

L) Loch Ness monster

M) mario

N) nyan cat

O) octopus

P) port

Q) question

R) Rocket

S) space invaders

T) transformer

U) university

V) Vietnam

W) whale

X) x-ray cubes

Y) youw!

Z) zelda

These are all absolutely beautiful and there are thousands and thousands more.

But this extraordinary piece of design and construction takes the cake... a intricate cityscape, posted by a genius builder on Google+. The location is a mystery... but the hunt is on - if you can find the mystery builds, please share with +Google Australia.

And happy building!

Posted by Lucinda Barlow, Head of Marketing, Google Australia & New Zealand

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Get directions around NSW on Trains, Ferries, Light Rail, and Buses in Google Maps

Locals and tourists alike use New South Wales’ hundreds of train, ferry, and bus lines — to the tune of over 500 million times per year. With so many people looking to make the most of the state’s extensive transit network, we are excited today to announce the launch of public transport directions in Google Maps for NSW.

Just as we added cycling directions two weeks ago, you will now be able to quickly generate public transport directions from point A to point B by simply clicking on the “Get Directions” button and then selecting the public transport icon.

To see how it works, search for a Thai restaurant in Sydney on Google Maps, click on “Directions,” input your current location, choose a departure or arrival time, and then let Google Maps recommend the most convenient public transport options. The results show you step-by-step directions including the best way to walk to a bus stop, ferry wharf or train station — as well as estimated travel time. On the left hand side of the map, you will see each step in the journey; click to see it pinned on the map. If you want, drag Pegman over to the location and scope out what the stop or station looks like in Street View.

Public transport directions are also available on Google Maps on mobile phones, so you will always have access to a trip planner. Using public transport navigation from a mobile has the added convenience of automatically putting your current location as the starting point to determine the best trip to your destination. Simply search for a place to go and click “Directions.”
With Google Maps for Mobile on Android phones, you can also use Navigation to get a step-by-step guide that gives you alerts when it’s the right time time to get off the bus or when to make a transfer. 


Public transport directions will be helpful to get around Sydney, but with 57 bus, train and ferry companies included, people living across the state, in towns large or small, will be able to take advantage of this new feature. 
Whether you use public transport every day or just occasionally, whether you use it as a commuter or as a tourist, we hope that public transport directions for NSW give you more choices in planning your trips.


Posted by Nabil Naghdy, Product Manager, Google Maps

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We’ve hung out with the PM... who’s next?

On Saturday morning, we woke up, made a cup of tea, turned on the Internet, and tuned in to...Prime Minister Julia Gillard?  The Prime Minister was grilled by ordinary Australians on hot topics like gay marriage, obesity, the digital economy, carbon tax and education.  She joins Barack Obama, Ban Ki-Moon, Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama on the list of world leaders who have participated in Google+ Hangouts, perhaps marking the next chapter in how technology is going to change our expectations for interacting with our leaders.  

If you missed it, you can watch the recording here:


We hope this Hangout has you thinking about all the other people, places, experiences, ideas, and issues that might be fun to explore via Google+ Hangouts.  Particularly since we launched Hangouts On Air (a feature that lets anyone watch your Hangout via video stream as it’s happening, and then records it for later viewing on YouTube), we’ve seen some pretty creative Aussies using Hangouts to feed their passions and:

  • Raise awareness of a cause. The +Catlin Seaview Survey based in Queensland has been holding underwater hangouts in the Great Barrier Reef as a way to raise awareness of their study on the effects of warming sea temperatures. Watch here.
  • Teach. +Chef Hangouts offers cooking classes with dozens of chefs via Hangouts, in the comfort of your own kitchen.  Keep an eye out for classes from Sydney’s +Jackie M and you can learn Malaysian cooking.

These are just a few examples -- it’s been amazing what people have been dreaming up.  When we built Hangouts, we certainly didn’t expect to see Perth’s +Paul Pichugin using it for +Virtual Photowalks down a West Australian beach, helping people with limited mobility to experience, from halfway around the world, an Australian sunrise and real Aussie surfers catching some waves.

Tell us on +Google Australia what types of Hangouts you’d like to see more of -- and tell us who’s been hosting great ones!

Posted by Lucinda Barlow, Head of Marketing, Google Australia & New Zealand

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Next Google Start-Up “Do” - July 31

This blog post was updated with additional panelists on 24 July 2012.

In May we launched our first Google Sudo event - a Google Start-Up Do - on the topic of incubation and venture capital. Over 200 aspiring entrepreneurs joined us live, and even more joined online in our Hangout (watch the recording here), for an engaging panel discussion with Mike Fox & Mike Knapp from start-up Shoes of Prey, angel investor Vivian Stewart from Sydney Angels, and VC Bill Bartee, from Southern Cross Venture Partners.

This month we’re back with a new panel and a new topic! On Tuesday, July 31, in Sydney we’ll be discussing how to drive user adoption. We’ll be learning how several experienced entrepreneurs took their products from a few users to hundreds and thousands, and how you too can scale your internet business.

The panelists:


Please register your interest here. We will email you an invitation if your registration is successful. Due to limited space we won’t be able to accommodate everyone, but we are hoping to stream the event over Google+ Hangout again -- stay tuned!

Posted by Alan Noble, Engineering Director, Google Australia and New Zealand

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The Internet means a faster future for Australia

This blog post was first published by The Age.

An all-too-common response to calls for investment in faster Internet is a derisory snort that hardly anyone needs to watch more videos online. We still imagine the Internet as it was 5 years ago, when it admittedly had the mental age of a smart adolescent. I’d argue that since then it’s worked its way towards its graduate degree and we should take a fresh look.

All culture is becoming Internet culture and that’s changing the economics of mass media and high culture. It’s no longer an either-or choice between The Shire and Four Corners -- or at least technological constraints that used to force that choice have vanished. That also changes the arithmetic of investment in the Internet, from one of business logistics to one of culture.

Look at what happened on Saturday which was available to all Australians with a reasonably fast Internet connection: thanks to Deakin University and Fairfax, our Prime Minister dialed into a Google+ Hangout for a video conversation with the nation. We had all been able to pose questions before, and 9 people joined her on the Hangout from their own computers, and the rest of us could watch and discuss on social media. The PM also took some questions asked on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ during the Hangout. This was a big moment in the evolutions of politics and the Internet.



In 2007, it seemed cool enough when Google engineers were capable of putting together a special page to track Australian federal election news and results. In 2008, Barack Obama’s use of Facebook and YouTube seemed to not just freshen his image but to give him a tactical edge over John McCain. In 2010, the use of YouTube to put Australian election coverage in the hands of the young seemed like a big deal here. Now, in 2012, it’s not enough for people to watch YouTube videos of the U.S. president or Australian prime minister answering their questions; they are now participating in videoconferences live with their leaders. The age of soundbites broadcast over mass media is giving way to an era of close interactions between politicians and voters that go anywhere the Internet does.

We’re seeing similar forces in education and the arts. When I tell you that Chris Tisdell recently passed a million views of his videos on YouTube, visions of toddlers or cats falling off things probably float in front of your eyes. Professor Tisdell drew those millions by recording his mathematics lectures to students at the University of New South Wales.

“This video gently introduces the concept of a partial derivative,” reads one video’s description, which wins the comment, “You are a good instructor. You are clear, concise and your preplanning is impeccable.” If you’re familiar with either YouTube comments or the average student’s appreciation for mathematics, your jaw just dropped.

Great teachers make for great teaching, and technology can’t change that. It can extend the reach of those teachers. Most of Prof. Tisdell’s audience aren’t even in Australia, but in India and the U.S. (Education is already the third-largest Australian export; imagine the possibilities to our economy if we use the Internet to continue to grow our reputation for excellence.) Sadly, many Australians have less access to Prof. Tisdell than foreigners do. Australia has the second-highest proportion of smartphone penetration in the world but over half a million Australians still struggle to check email on slow dial-up connections. This is the country that was visionary enough to develop the School of the Air over short-wave radio. That same vision implies that the Internet has to be a major part of any educational investment -- broadband is bringing a thirsty audience to education from all over.

That applies not just to education, but to the humanities as a whole. The Australian cultural industry looks very different on the Internet from the one I grew up with, the one that caused hand-wringing as to what was truly Australian culture and how to protect it from foreign imports. When it comes to online video, Australia is a net exporter. Without any subsidies to push this forward, Australian online videos get more views outside Australia than foreign videos get within Australia. The Sydney Opera House speaks of the Internet as its eighth stage, allowing it to send entire performances to anyone with an Internet connection for less money than it would cost to send them a ticket.

I’d also like to note that it’s remarkable to me that professors, artists, musicians and politicians are seizing this opportunity so much more quickly than a lot of the business community. I frequently get the impression that the Internet isn’t serious enough for hard-headed businessmen. I wonder where they go for their partial-derivatives lectures.

One way to frame this is to say that broadband capable of transmitting video has vastly increased the returns of investment in broadcasting knowledge and ideas. The Internet, so long viewed as a distraction from culture, is now allowing culture to compete more effectively with distractions. As a country and as a community, we need to make similar investments to ensure no one gets left out.

Posted by Nick Leeder, Managing Director, Google Australia & New Zealand

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Kickstarting Aussie Startups - Stock Options



This is the fourth post in a series on kickstarting Aussie startups. The first post is here.

In my previous posts I focused on how the government can encourage investors to back startups through some relatively straightforward taxation and policy changes. In this post, I'm switching tacks and focusing on ways of incentivizing employees in startups.

Traditionally, incentive stock options have been the most flexible and tax-efficient way to incentivize employees. Options give employees “skin in the game” without incurring tax liabilities until they are exercised and (presumably) worth something. At least, that is the way they are supposed work. Unfortunately, Australia’s tax treatment of stock options is now amongst the most backward and punitive in the world. Since the tax changes that came into effect on 1 July 2009, Australia taxes options at the time of their granting. Given that options typically come with restrictions, for example, vest over several years and cannot be traded until exercised, this means employees are being taxed for gains that they may never even realize! Suffice to say, this removes a key incentive for employees to join startups.

That said, private (unlisted) companies can find legal workarounds around these restrictions, but quoting Scott Farquhar, the co-founder of Atlassian:
"It's very difficult; just the legal and the tax structures that you have to set up in Australia took us hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and tax advice and so forth ... whereas if you go to the States it's a relatively simple document that's pretty standard that everyone signs and it might cost you two or three grand in legal fees.”
This is definitely not the kind of financial outlay that your average startup can afford!

Further, public companies have no such recourse and, as a result, have stopped issuing stock options to Australian employees. Instead, restricted stock has become the chief means of incentivizing employees in public companies. Unfortunately, restricted stock lacks the flexibility of options since, under the current tax regime, employees incur a tax liability at the time of vesting. Invariably this forces employees to sell shares to cover their tax liabilities. Everyone loses in this model. The employee loses “skin in the game” and the Australian Tax Office (ATO) loses tax receipts on future capital gains. In addition, 3 years and counting and there is still no clear guidance from the ATO to confirm whether it is even permissible to allow vesting of restricted stock with time frames of less than one year, e.g., quarterly vesting.

Proposal 4: Tax stock options upon exercise

Defer taxation of stock options until the point of exercise and mandate that employers withhold the income tax. This simple approach, which works well in the US and the UK, requires minimal administration by the employer and minimal risk to the employee. There are no loop holes and no potential for rorting, and it preserves maximum revenues for the government (albeit deferred). Finally, it works for startups and multinationals alike.

Let's put the incentive back into incentive stock options!


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Customize your posts with permalinks

Earlier this year we introduced a suite of new SEO features that help ensure your blog, posts, and images are accurately indexed so they appear correctly in search results. Today we’re happy to introduce another feature that enables you to more effectively customize your search preferences - custom permalinks.

When you write a post, Blogger automatically generates a permalink based on the title of the post. Until now, blog authors have had no control of the permalink. Custom permalinks give you more control of your blog and posts. These new custom links also provide readers with more information about your post when scanning search results.

If you prefer to use a custom permalink, you can do so via the “Permalink” option in the Post Settings box. 


To create your own URL for a specific post, simply select “Custom URL”, and enter your new URL in the field below. If you wrote the post in June of 2012, your new URL will look like this:


The bolded area is the portion of the URL that is customizable.

If the custom permalink you entered already exists, Blogger will attempt find a free one for you.

At present, the characters allowed in a custom URL are limited to: a-z, A-Z, 0-1. The only special characters available are underscore, dash, and period.

Click here to read more about custom permalinks in the Blogger Help Center.

Happy blogging!

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Become an Antarctic explorer with panoramic imagery

Cross posted from the Official Google Blog

In the winter of 1913, a British newspaper ran an advertisement to promote the latest imperial expedition to Antarctica, apparently placed by polar explorer by Ernest Shackleton. It read, "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success." While the ad appears apocryphal, the dangerous nature of the journey to the South Pole is certainly not—as explorers like Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott and Shackleton himself discovered as they tried to become the first men to reach it.

Back in September 2010, we launched the first Street View imagery of the Antarctic, enabling users from more habitable lands to see penguins in Antarctica for the first time. Today we’re bringing you additional panoramic imagery of historic Antarctic locations that you can view from the comfort of your homes. We’ll be posting this special collection to our World Wonders site, where you can learn more about the history of South Pole exploration.



With the help of the Polar Geospatial Center at the University of Minnesota and the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust, we’ve added 360-imagery of many important spots, inside and out, such as the South Pole Telescope, Shackleton's hut, Scott’s hut, Cape Royds Adélie Penguin Rookery and the Ceremonial South Pole.


The ceremonial South Pole (View Larger Map)


The interior of Shackleton’s Hut demonstrates the host of supplies used in early 20th Century Antarctic Expeditions—everything from medicine and food to candles and cargo sleds can be found neatly stored inside. (View Larger Map)

With this technology, you can go inside places like Shackleton’s Hut (pictured above) and the other small wooden buildings that served as bases from which the explorers launched their expeditions. They were built to withstand the drastic weather conditions only for the few short years that the explorers inhabited them, but remarkably, after more than a century, the structures are still intact, along with well-preserved examples of the food, medicine, survival gear and equipment used during the expeditions. Now anyone can explore these huts and get insight into how these men lived for months at a time.


The landscape outside of Robert Falcon Scott’s supply hut conveys just how desolate the area is. For these early explorers, the supply huts were an oasis of warmth and comfort in a cold and inhospitable landscape. (View Larger Map)

This new imagery was collected with a lightweight tripod camera with a fisheye lens—equipment typically used to capture business interiors through the Business Photos program. We worked with this technology because of its portability, reliability and ease-of-use (our Street View trikes wouldn’t be much use in the snow).

The goal of these efforts is to provide scientists and travel (or penguin) enthusiasts all over the world with the most accurate, high-resolution data of these important historic locations. With this access, schoolchildren as far as Bangalore can count penguin colonies on Snow Hill Island, and geologists in Georgia can trace sedimentary layers in the Dry Valleys from the comfort of their desks. So feel free to leave your boots and mittens behind while still embarking on a trip to Antarctica.

Posted by Alex Starns, Technical Program Manager, Street View

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