Today, we're pleased to announce the most recent addition to our scholarship programs, the Google Lime Scholarship for Students with Disabilities. We're partnering with Lime to offer scholarships to students with disabilities who are pursuing university degrees in the field of computer science in Canada or the U.S. Lime is a not-for-profit organization that brings together global corporations and people with disabilities, bringing to light an untapped source of talent. Scholarships will be granted for the 2009–2010 academic year, and recipients will be invited to attend an all-expenses-paid retreat at the Googleplex in Mountain View in 2010.
We hope that this program will increase opportunities for students with disabilities and encourage them to pursue careers in computer science. We also hope to foster long-lasting relationships through which these students can support each other over the course of their academic studies.
The deadline to apply for this year's Lime Scholarship is June 1, 2009. For complete details, visit www.google.com/jobs/scholarships.
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
YouTube Symphony Orchestra: from idea to reality
(Cross-posted from the YouTube Blog)
Today represents the final culmination of an idea many months in the making: a first-class global orchestra brought together by YouTube. This week, over 90 musicians from around the world -- including a Spanish guitarist, a Dutch harpist and a Lithuanian birbyne player — have gathered in New York City in preparation for tonight's historic YouTube Symphony Orchestra performance at Carnegie Hall. And today on YouTube's homepage, we are proud to present the world premiere of Tan Dun's composition "Internet Symphony, Eroica," as selected and mashed up from nearly 3,000 video submissions from around the globe.
Maestro — the mash-up, please!
Along with the "Eroica" premiere, we're also posting exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of the preparation leading up to tonight's performance. Learn more about the YouTube Symphony Orchestra by watching candid vlogs, early rehearsals with conductor and creative director Michael Tilson Thomas, and meet-and-greets between the musicians lucky enough to participate in this once-in-a-lifetime event. Many thanks to our "Vlog Squad" team of classical musicians (Caeli Smith, Jeremy Denk, and Eiko Sudoh), and to Harmony Films, who are currently putting together a full-length documentary on the YouTube Symphony Orchestra.
And for those of you who can't make it to New York in time for the big show, don't fret. We'll be posting the full performance from Carnegie Hall on YouTube tomorrow at www.youtube.com/symphony.
Today represents the final culmination of an idea many months in the making: a first-class global orchestra brought together by YouTube. This week, over 90 musicians from around the world -- including a Spanish guitarist, a Dutch harpist and a Lithuanian birbyne player — have gathered in New York City in preparation for tonight's historic YouTube Symphony Orchestra performance at Carnegie Hall. And today on YouTube's homepage, we are proud to present the world premiere of Tan Dun's composition "Internet Symphony, Eroica," as selected and mashed up from nearly 3,000 video submissions from around the globe.
Maestro — the mash-up, please!
Along with the "Eroica" premiere, we're also posting exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of the preparation leading up to tonight's performance. Learn more about the YouTube Symphony Orchestra by watching candid vlogs, early rehearsals with conductor and creative director Michael Tilson Thomas, and meet-and-greets between the musicians lucky enough to participate in this once-in-a-lifetime event. Many thanks to our "Vlog Squad" team of classical musicians (Caeli Smith, Jeremy Denk, and Eiko Sudoh), and to Harmony Films, who are currently putting together a full-length documentary on the YouTube Symphony Orchestra.
And for those of you who can't make it to New York in time for the big show, don't fret. We'll be posting the full performance from Carnegie Hall on YouTube tomorrow at www.youtube.com/symphony.
Monday, 13 April 2009
An ARIA for Google Moderator
From time to time, our own T.V. Raman shares his tips on how to use Google from his perspective as a technologist who cannot see -- tips that sighted people, among others, may also find useful. - Ed.
Google-AxsJAX was launched in late 2007 as a library for access-enabling Web-2.0 applications. Since then, we have released accessibility enhancements for many Web-2.0 applications via the AxsJAX site as early experiments that have eventually graduated into full-fledged products. Just recently we posted about using the AxsJAX library to provide ARIA enhancements for Google Calendar, Google Finance and Google News. Now we are happy to share an early AxsJAX extension for Google Moderator that enables fluent eyes-free use of the tool.
For details about AxsJAX enhancements, see the AxsJAX FAQ. Briefly, you need Firefox 3.0 and a screenreader that supports W3C ARIA to take advantage of these enhancements. Users who do not have a screenreader installed can most easily experience the results by installing Fire Vox, a freely available self-voicing extension for Firefox.
You can activate the AxsJAX enhancement for Google Moderator either by clicking on the link that says "Click here for ARIA enhanced Google Moderator" or by accessing the ARIA-enhanced version directly. After enabling the enhancement, you can use Google Moderator via the keyboard, with all user interaction producing spoken feedback via W3C ARIA.
Here is a brief overview of the experience:
1. The user interface is divided into logical panes — one listing topic areas, and the other listing questions on a given topic. At times (e.g., before a meeting), you may find an additional Featured Question pane that shows a randomly selected question that you can vote on.
2. Users can ask new questions under a given topic, or give a thumbs-up/thumbs-down to questions that have already been asked.
3. Use the left and right arrow keys to switch between the two panes. You hear the title of the selected pane as you switch.
4. Use up and down arrows to navigate among the items in the selected pane. As you navigate, you hear the current item.
5. Hit enter to select the current item.
6. The current item can be magnified by repeatedly pressing the + (or =) key. To reduce magnification, press the - key.
7. When navigating the questions in a given topic, hit y or n to vote a question up or down.
8. When navigating items in the topic pane, hit a to ask a question. Once you confirm your request to post the question, it will show up in the list of questions for that topic so that others can vote that question up or down.
Please visit the Google Group for accessibility to provide feedback. This AxsJAX extension is still a work in progress, so we'd love to hear from you as we continue to work out the kinks.
Update on 4/14: Clarified in the second and third paragraphs that you do not need to install this enhancement. You can access it directly from Google Moderator.
Google-AxsJAX was launched in late 2007 as a library for access-enabling Web-2.0 applications. Since then, we have released accessibility enhancements for many Web-2.0 applications via the AxsJAX site as early experiments that have eventually graduated into full-fledged products. Just recently we posted about using the AxsJAX library to provide ARIA enhancements for Google Calendar, Google Finance and Google News. Now we are happy to share an early AxsJAX extension for Google Moderator that enables fluent eyes-free use of the tool.
For details about AxsJAX enhancements, see the AxsJAX FAQ. Briefly, you need Firefox 3.0 and a screenreader that supports W3C ARIA to take advantage of these enhancements. Users who do not have a screenreader installed can most easily experience the results by installing Fire Vox, a freely available self-voicing extension for Firefox.
You can activate the AxsJAX enhancement for Google Moderator either by clicking on the link that says "Click here for ARIA enhanced Google Moderator" or by accessing the ARIA-enhanced version directly. After enabling the enhancement, you can use Google Moderator via the keyboard, with all user interaction producing spoken feedback via W3C ARIA.
Here is a brief overview of the experience:
1. The user interface is divided into logical panes — one listing topic areas, and the other listing questions on a given topic. At times (e.g., before a meeting), you may find an additional Featured Question pane that shows a randomly selected question that you can vote on.
2. Users can ask new questions under a given topic, or give a thumbs-up/thumbs-down to questions that have already been asked.
3. Use the left and right arrow keys to switch between the two panes. You hear the title of the selected pane as you switch.
4. Use up and down arrows to navigate among the items in the selected pane. As you navigate, you hear the current item.
5. Hit enter to select the current item.
6. The current item can be magnified by repeatedly pressing the + (or =) key. To reduce magnification, press the - key.
7. When navigating the questions in a given topic, hit y or n to vote a question up or down.
8. When navigating items in the topic pane, hit a to ask a question. Once you confirm your request to post the question, it will show up in the list of questions for that topic so that others can vote that question up or down.
Please visit the Google Group for accessibility to provide feedback. This AxsJAX extension is still a work in progress, so we'd love to hear from you as we continue to work out the kinks.
Update on 4/14: Clarified in the second and third paragraphs that you do not need to install this enhancement. You can access it directly from Google Moderator.