Tag Archives: UK

Improving online storytelling for blind and low vision readers

It’s a fact that we all enjoy a good story, right? Human beings consume storytelling like nothing else. From daily news articles, to movies, music and books, we are voracious consumers of stories. Through them, we make sense of ourselves and our place in the world. We articulate our experiences, share them and connect with others through them.  So what if those stories weren’t easy to access?

What if there were blockers that stood between you and the news, and storytelling, which help you make sense of the world? 

That’s the reality for 300 million blind and low vision readers, for whom it can be challenging to access even basic news headlines online, due to the inaccessibility of website designs.

All websites should adhere to accessibility standards, but the vast majority (97% of homepages) do not. Even when accessibility guidelines are followed, there’s a big difference between creating a website that’s accessible for assistive technologies, and enjoyable human storytelling for blind and low vision readers.

The question is: How do we create online content that is genuinely engaging for everyone, whether you rely on your sight, or not?

That’s the question we set out to answer with Auditorial — an experiment in storytelling that adapts to suit the reader, co-created by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), The Guardian and Google.

The landing page of the Auditorial experience, welcomes readers to 'an experiment in storytelling that adapts to suit the reader'.

It’s a piece of storytelling that is completely customisable, to offer those with visual disabilities an experience that is as comfortable, rich and creative as any other reader.

So if you’re blind and have sensitive hearing, for example, you can listen to the story but remove background noise to enable you to focus on the narrator. If you have photophobia, a light sensitivity, you can flip the story into dark mode, and all the animations take on a darker form. If you have a motion sensitivity, you can flip a switch that turns all moving images into keyframes. If you have faded colour vision you can enhance all the imagery. And so on and so forth.

A screenshot from online stoytelling experience Auditorial shows an image of Bernie Krause kneeling down beside the ocean, recording the waves. Closed captions at the bottom of the screen read 'He's recorded whales and how difficult it is for them to communicate when loud ships pass by'.

This project is intended to pose a question about how much more accessible the world’s information could be, if you could simply tailor every website to suit your personal sensory needs and preferences. Through it, we hope to provoke a discussion about how the web at large might become a more inclusive place for people with disabilities, simply by offering different modes of interaction rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach.

We captured key learnings from our collaborations with the blind and low vision community in the Auditorial Accessibility Notebook, to help other publishers of all shapes and sizes understand the simple tips and tricks that can open up online storytelling to millions of blind and low vision users.

By sharing these learnings, our hope is that more people than ever will be able to discover the stories that make us laugh, help us learn and open our minds.

And it starts with the adaptable story of The Silent Spring, written by the Guardian, for Auditorial.

How The FA used tech to get the ball rolling

For millions of football fans across the U.K. and around the world, the return of live matches in the English Premier League was a long-awaited milestone in the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.


Enter Project Restart: the nickname given to the Premier League’s attempts to resume the season while ensuring the safety of players and fans. But with self-distancing as one of the key preventive measures against COVID-19, how could the safety of players be ensured when they’re interacting on the pitch? We at The Football Association (FA) were proud to have partnered with the Premier League to help in this aspect of the project.


A critical area addresses the challenge of ensuring players can interact at peak levels while observing the self-distancing norms still recommended by health authorities. To do this, we created a new analysis of thousands of hours of match play, and used machine learning technology to tell us about contact risk during a 90-minute football match.


We looked at all 380 games from the 2018/19 Premier League season, and the 288 pre-lockdown games from the 2019/20 Premier League season. Incredibly, this showed us over 40 billion interactions between players, captured in 100 million video frames which collectively made up 10 terabytes of data. Even the longtime players, coaches, and fans among us were staggered by how much goes on, even in one game.


Our system tracked players on the field at a rate of four-one hundreths of every second, ensuring we could analyse every interaction for concern about possible exposure. We employed the Exponential Model, developed by Danish public health academics, which at the time was considered the most accurate modelling of virus transmission during a football match. 


The model focuses on the 1.5 metre radius around each player, paying strict attention to the two second rate of decay, or half life, that COVID particles typically have in infecting a person in certain environmental conditions. Staying on the safe side, we employed a simplified model, which considered a player that is within two metres of an infected player during the half-life of the virus to be 100% exposed. 


As you may have guessed, all of this work involved gathering and analysing a tremendous amount of data from multiple sources, on some of the most advanced computing available. Working with Google Cloud, we used Google BigQuery to store the data and run a built-in machine learning model based on the simplified Model. BigQuery looked at an average of 145,000 rows of data per game analysed, examining every frame of tracking data for distance between all pairs of players on the pitch throughout an entire match. This fast and powerful toolset was critical to our success. 

What we concluded was good news: During a 90-minute football match, players spent on average a total of 90 seconds within a two-metre proximity of each other. Include goalkeepers into the calculation, and the average time decreases to 70 seconds. 


In other words: the risk factor of exposure to players was considered low, and we therefore determined that it was safe to keep the ball rolling. To be sure, players continue to be tested for symptoms of COVID infection before games, but this interaction data provides us with a critical level of reassurance.


It's great news, but it also reminds us that vigilant awareness and rigorous analytic insight help ensure not just a successful return to play, but a broader sense of confidence about the future of Premier League Football. We're building on a proud heritage of innovation, camaraderie and looking out for each other — the true heart of sport. 


The end result - we were able to keep the ball rolling

The end result - we were able to keep the ball rolling

Helping protect people from financial fraud in the U.K.

Over the last few years, people in the U.K. have been targeted by increasingly sophisticated scammers on and offline. According to UK Finance, in 2020, total fraud loss was £1.26 billion. Criminal gangs are using multiple malicious methods, including phishing emails, spoof phone calls and texts, shopping scams and impersonation scams, as well as scam advertising on social media and search engines.

Joining efforts to collaborate across industries

Tackling the scale of this problem requires collaboration across government, the financial services industry, the telecommunications industry, the tech industry and law enforcement. To play our part in this effort, we have become the first major technology company to join Stop Scams UK and will develop and share best practices with existing members from financial services and telecoms industries.


We also understand the importance of ensuring people are informed about how to spot the tactics of scammers and avoid falling victim to fraud, which is why we have pledged $5 million in advertising credits to support public awareness campaigns. The ads credits will be offered to cross-industry organisations already campaigning on this issue, as well as government bodies undertaking awareness campaigns.

Strengthening measures to protect U.K. consumers

As well as better equipping people to spot a scam, we know how vital it is to protect people from fraud. Over the next few months we will be developing and rolling out further restrictions to financial services advertising in the UK to protect consumers and legitimate advertisers.

The new measures build on significant work we have done to date to help stop financial scammers in the U.K., working closely with the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority):

  • In early 2020, we worked with the FCA to receive notifications when additions are made to the FCA warning list. There are more than 4,000 websites on the warning list.
  • Over the past year, we introduced several verification processes to learn more about the advertisers and their business operations. During the verification period, we pause advertiser accounts if their advertising or business practices are suspected of causing harm. We are currently requiring all UK financial services advertisers to complete these programs in order to run ads.
  • We updated our unreliable claims policy to restrict the rates of return a firm can advertise and ban the use of terms that make unrealistic promises of large financial return with minimal risk, effort or investment. 
  • We recently undertook a review of user experiences that tend to be targeted in the UK by bad actors and have introduced further restrictions, preventing ads from showing on those searches.

Globally, Google has also introduced new advertiser identity verification and rolled this out across the U.K. beginning earlier this year. Advertisers now need to submit personal legal identification, business incorporation documents or other information that proves who they are and the country in which they operate. This means Google can more effectively determine bad actors in the ecosystem from the start.

Ready to respond to evolving scammer tactics

At Google, thousands of people work around the clock to deliver a safe experience for users, creators, publishers and advertisers. Our teams use a mix of technology, including sophisticated machine learning, and human review to enforce our policies. This combination of technology and talent means policy violations can be spotted and action can be taken to remove bad ads.


Our teams are working hard on this issue because we all want U.K. consumers to feel safe and protected when they are managing their finances. Even as attempts by scammers evolve, we will continue to take strong action and work in partnership with others to help keep consumers safe.


Google News Showcase is launching in the U.K.

Today, we’re announcing that Google News Showcase, our new product experience and licensing program for news, will begin rolling out with local, national and independent publishers in the U.K. As part of our licensing agreements with publishers, we're also launching the ability for readers to access select paywall content. This feature will give readers the opportunity to read more of a publisher’s content than they would otherwise have access to, while enabling publishers to encourage readers to become a subscriber. 

In the U.K, Google has signed partnerships with publishers such as Archant, DC Thomson, Evening Standard, The Financial Times, Iliffe Media, The Independent, Midland News Association, New Statesman, Newsquest, JPI Media, Reach, The Telegraph and Reuters. In total, more than 120 publications in the U.K. will start curating content for News Showcase, many of them local newspapers who do not have the same resources that many larger, national papers have to invest in their digital transformation.

"We welcome this initiative and its potential to give public interest journalism a more visible platform in Google,” says David Higgerson, Chief Audience Officer of Reach, the largest commercial publisher in the U.K, with many regional and national brands. “For us, public interest journalism thrives when it is not just about recording events but is of genuine interest to the public and is able to attract an audience that means it is sustainable. Google's work here will help give readers a new way to discover news which is important to them, which they may not otherwise have discovered."

Globally, there are now more than 450 news publications in Google News Showcase in over a dozen countries including Australia, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, U.K. and Argentina with discussions underway in a number of other countries.

“Google News Showcase extends The Independent’s well established partnership with Google, delivering on  the brand’s diversified strategy to develop data-rich, engaged customer relationships, licensing revenues and digital subscriptions,” says Zach Leonard, Chief Executive of The Independent. “We’re thrilled to join the platform as it rolls out."

A GIF of what Google News Showcase panels will look like for UK partners

An example of how News Showcase story panels will look with some of our UK publishing partners

With News Showcase panels, editors at news organizations can help explain complicated news topics and bring context to readers looking to understand more. News Showcase panels display an enhanced view of an article or articles, giving participating publishers more ways to bring important news to readers and explain it in their own voice, along with more direct control of presentation and branding. 

"We have a longstanding partnership with Google and we are pleased to be launch partners for News Showcase,” says Chris Taylor, COO, The Telegraph. “We welcome the registration and subscription sampling opportunities that News Showcase will provide to Google users and we are confident that many of them will go on to become Telegraph subscribers."

News Showcase content from our publisher partners will automatically start to appear in panels in Google News and Discover, and direct readers to the full article on the publisher’s site. People will see panels from publishers they follow in their personalised feeds and they might also see panels from publishers they’re less familiar with, presented as suggestions in the Google News “For You” feed and inside “Newsstand,” the discovery area of Google News. Panels are already appearing in Google News on Android, iOS and the mobile web, and in Discover on iOS, and will start appearing in other versions of these products soon.

Different News Showcase panel layouts from UK publishers

An example of different New Showcase panel layouts from our publishing partners in the UK. 

“We are excited to be working with Google News Showcase and we hope to see new audiences coming to our sites through the partnership,” says Richard Neville, Head of Newspapers at DC Thomson, publishers of regional newspapers and magazines. “We are always looking for innovative ways to increase engagement and expand our ability to attract subscribers and I’m sure this will help us on both counts.”

These latest News Showcase partnerships build on the work that Google has done for nearly 20 years, in particular to support local journalism in the U.K. In January this year, we announced our support for an online portal for public notices to help preserve an important source of funding for U.K. local publishers. Last year, we funded 104 small and medium local newsrooms across the U.K. through our Journalism Emergency Relief Fund and we introduced the Digital Growth Programme, a free training program to help establish and grow the online business of small-to-medium sized news publishers who have more recently started developing their digital platforms. Forty-nine UK publishers have already taken part in the Digital Growth program.

As new partners from around the world continue to sign on to Google News Showcase, we’ll work to incorporate their feedback as we build out new, innovative features. Alongside governments, other companies and civic society, we're dedicated to continuing to support the sustainability of the news industry both in the UK and around the world.



Related Article

Google News Showcase launches in Australia

Today we are rolling out an initial version of Google News Showcase to benefit users and publishers in Australia.

Read Article

How Google is helping me connect with family this year

In a normal year, my family would be planning for our 12-hour flight to South Africa, my home country, to see family for the holidays. But since we can’t do that this year, we’re trying to reimagine the usual gatherings and traditions—the same way we’ve already reimagined work, school, birthdays and other holidays.

I’ve been thinking back to how we coped with lockdown in March and April, and using that to figure out how to close out the year. Like every other family with small children, I am not entirely sure how I managed it—and let’s be honest, most of the time I relied on pure survival tactics. But I also developed a range of new hacks and skills, making use of a few practical Google products. As we prepare to do it all again, with shorter days and colder weather, these are some of the lessons I’ll take with me:

photo of a girl coloring while having a virtual video call with her grandma on a laptop

Storytime Hour with Granny comes with a free printout to color with each story.

Near or far, loved ones can be close

So many families are dispersed across the globe. I live in the UK, but I’m originally from South Africa, and my family still resides there. I haven’t ever experienced what it’s like to have parents living nearby, but somehow during lockdown the thing I needed most was to have my mum there to lend a hand with the kids or just pop in for a cup of tea. My children were not in school, and I was managing a large project at work. To add insult to injury, my kids also openly admitted that my storytelling was just not up to scratch during our daily school lessons, and that they’d prefer to “hear from Granny, because she does the funny voices.”


Necessity being the mother of invention, “Storytime Hour with Granny” was born. 


We began a tradition of setting up a Google Meet every afternoon, so she could read a story to her grandchildren for an hour. We set up the call in Google Calendar, where it was easy for her to simply click on the Meet link, and for one precious hour, my children were transported to another place, mesmerized by old storybooks. (And I transported myself to my home office for some less mesmerizing but blessedly uninterrupted focus time while listening to questionable music and sipping coffee that wasn’t cold, for a change.)

Two children roll out dough while watching an instructional video on YouTube

Sometimes you need to consult the biscuit instructors. Yes, that is a job. 

Create a class

As much as my kids loved the connection with their grandmother, they also needed to connect with their friends. My son is in his third year of primary school, so he’s not old enough to socialize virtually on his own. So I set up a weekly “class assembly” where he could connect with his peers, say hello and spend most of the hour pulling faces at each other. Using Google Meet on my laptop meant we could see all 30 kids and their parents joining from their homes. (Even if, at times, the camera was pointed towards the ceiling or only the top of a child’s head.) 


Each week we picked a different topic to talk about. When it was my turn, I hosted a banana bread-making class, where I asked the Google Assistant to pull up a simple recipe from YouTube that we could all follow easily. As a backup, the Google Assistant can quickly provide answers to questions such as “How many tablespoons is one cup?” (It was also helpful with the many other fundamental questions lockdown brings, such as “How many blues are there in the world?” and “What does a peregrine falcon sound like?” among others I needed reminding of, such as what day of the week it was.)

photo of a Next Hub Max displaying a photo of two children on swings

Besides all the helpful features, Nest Hub Max can display a seemingly infinite carousel of photos.

Share and display your photos 

As my parents live far away, this year I have decided to gift them a Nest Hub Max for Christmas. I know my mum will keep it in the kitchen, which means she can watch YouTube videos, stream Netflix content, listen to music and make video calls on Google Duo, all while she’s preparing meals or having tea. It also means my parents won’t need to set up their laptop for Storytime Hour anymore; they can just dial in straight from this nifty device. 


But the thing I’m most excited about is the Nest Hub Max’s photo frame feature. All grandparents love photos, but they seem to have taken on new significance in the absence of face-to-face visits—even the not-so-photogenic ones (and like many families who take photos on the fly, we have plenty of those action shots). And now my children won’t have to say, “Take a picture! Don’t forget to send it to Granny! Did you send it to Granny? You forgot, didn’t you?” Soon they’ll be able to automatically see and enjoy those moments in a shared photo album from Google Photos shown on the display, whether it’s that vacation we took to Croatia pre-lockdown, or a macro close-up of my daughter’s forehead. To enable this, all you need to do is set up the Nest Hub photo frame feature.
photo of two children in a bedroom crowding around and looking intently at a nightstand

“That’s a really great photo of your arm...or is that my arm?”

Help with bedtime

When the days slip into more days that feel exactly the same as all the other days, creating a set daily schedule—especially for bedtime—has been key to helping my children settle down. I set up a Routine using the Google Assistant on a Google Nest Mini in the kids’ room. As they’re getting into their pajamas and bouncing off the walls, I say the command that, frankly, Mary Poppins would’ve been grateful for: "Hey Google, bedtime." I’m given tomorrow’s weather forecast (informing us, almost always, that we’ll need to pack an umbrella) and any scheduled calendar events. It then sets an alarm for the morning and dims the lights, ready for story time. To help them nod off, it also plays relaxing sounds, turning the noise off automatically after an hour when they are hopefully sound asleep. This has really helped them adjust to their own rhythm at home, even if it doesn’t always go to plan—which, let’s be honest, is at least 50 percent of the time. But at least the chaos is accompanied by the lulling background noise of crashing waves.

Oakland Care and Nest help residents connect for the holidays

Editor's note: This story is guest authored by Aaron White, Business Services Manager at Oakland Care, a leading provider of residential care homes in the United Kingdom.

The current pandemic has been devastating in many ways, and as someone who works for a group of care homes, Oakland Care, it’s been particularly heartbreaking to see its effects on our residents. UK Government guidelines required care homes to ensure residents maintain a social distance from their loved ones. Visits from sons, daughters and grandchildren have always brought so much joy to our Homes, but the virus’s high impact on older people has meant that these once-welcome visits brought too much risk to their health and that of the team members. 

Our primary focus has had to be protecting people from the virus, but with that comes a risk of isolation and loneliness. So, we wanted to try and bring our residents some reprieve by offering them a new way to connect with their loved ones. As the person responsible for innovation at Oakland Care, I’ve been keenly focused on how we can use new technologies to improve our residents’ lives. In partnership with Google and Volara, we explored how technology could help  connect families, as well as help our residents explore new ways to stay entertained.

Two weeks ago—just in time for the holidays—we introduced our residents to Google for Senior Living, a solution where we could use Nest Hub Max smart displays in our care homes. We initially thought we would experience challenges setting the devices up, but we were impressed by how hassle-free it was, and the residents found them easy to use and quickly grew accustomed to them.

Image shows an elderly woman in a wheelchair with a nurse who is wearing a mask leaning over her shoulder. Bother women are looking at a Google Nest Hub Max and reading a booklet with instructions. The nurse is pointing at the screen, and the woman in the wheelchair is smiling.

Resident Sylvia Culling learns how to use her Google Nest Hub Max.

This has enabled our residents—many of whom do not use a smartphone, let alone a smart display—to learn how to easily video call someone special with voice commands, which is especially helpful for those who struggle with buttons or remembering how to use technology. It’s sparked once again that warm feeling and those bright smiles that come from being face-to-face with their children, sharing a memory with an old friend or seeing their grandchildren laugh and play. Residents have also enjoyed using voice commands to listen to favorite songs on YouTube Music, the latest football scores or news and weather forecasts. 

Take Winnie, a resident at Lambwood Heights, one of our care facilities. She was used to seeing her two daughters, Carole and Margaret, almost every day before the pandemic. With a new Nest Hub Max in her room, she can dial them up for a phone or video call whenever she wants to. It gives her control over when and how she speaks to her loved ones and has really helped her feel more content over this period. 

An elderly woman with brown hair wearing a sweater looks at Nest Hub Max screen that's playing a video of people tap dancing on it. The device is sitting on a table where she also has family photos in frames.

Winnie enjoys watching old tap dancing films in her room.

Winnie used to be a dancer, performing at London’s famous Windmill Theatre when she was just a teenager. Music is really important to her, and her Nest Hub Max allows her to call up favorite tunes whenever she feels the rhythm in her feet. She keeps her tap shoes nearby, and sometimes she pops them on when the music is playing, especially when she wants some time to herself. Having the Nest device means she can close the door and watch her favorite TV show, “Strictly Come Dancing.”

Nest Hub Max has become a much-adored companion for our residents, brightening days during what has been a tragic year for many. It’s been extremely fulfilling to see the impact this technology has already had, and I can’t wait to introduce the device to new residents, and hopefully bring more of this type of technology to the Oakland Care community.

Oakland Care and Nest help residents connect for the holidays

Editor's note: This story is guest authored by Aaron White, Business Services Manager at Oakland Care, a leading provider of residential care homes in the United Kingdom.

The current pandemic has been devastating in many ways, and as someone who works for a group of care homes, Oakland Care, it’s been particularly heartbreaking to see its effects on our residents. UK Government guidelines required care homes to ensure residents maintain a social distance from their loved ones. Visits from sons, daughters and grandchildren have always brought so much joy to our Homes, but the virus’s high impact on older people has meant that these once-welcome visits brought too much risk to their health and that of the team members. 

Our primary focus has had to be protecting people from the virus, but with that comes a risk of isolation and loneliness. So, we wanted to try and bring our residents some reprieve by offering them a new way to connect with their loved ones. As the person responsible for innovation at Oakland Care, I’ve been keenly focused on how we can use new technologies to improve our residents’ lives. In partnership with Google and Volara, we explored how technology could help  connect families, as well as help our residents explore new ways to stay entertained.

Two weeks ago—just in time for the holidays—we introduced our residents to Google for Senior Living, a solution where we could use Nest Hub Max smart displays in our care homes. We initially thought we would experience challenges setting the devices up, but we were impressed by how hassle-free it was, and the residents found them easy to use and quickly grew accustomed to them.

Image shows an elderly woman in a wheelchair with a nurse who is wearing a mask leaning over her shoulder. Bother women are looking at a Google Nest Hub Max and reading a booklet with instructions. The nurse is pointing at the screen, and the woman in the wheelchair is smiling.

Resident Sylvia Culling learns how to use her Google Nest Hub Max.

This has enabled our residents—many of whom do not use a smartphone, let alone a smart display—to learn how to easily video call someone special with voice commands, which is especially helpful for those who struggle with buttons or remembering how to use technology. It’s sparked once again that warm feeling and those bright smiles that come from being face-to-face with their children, sharing a memory with an old friend or seeing their grandchildren laugh and play. Residents have also enjoyed using voice commands to listen to favorite songs on YouTube Music, the latest football scores or news and weather forecasts. 

Take Winnie, a resident at Lambwood Heights, one of our care facilities. She was used to seeing her two daughters, Carole and Margaret, almost every day before the pandemic. With a new Nest Hub Max in her room, she can dial them up for a phone or video call whenever she wants to. It gives her control over when and how she speaks to her loved ones and has really helped her feel more content over this period. 

An elderly woman with brown hair wearing a sweater looks at Nest Hub Max screen that's playing a video of people tap dancing on it. The device is sitting on a table where she also has family photos in frames.

Winnie enjoys watching old tap dancing films in her room.

Winnie used to be a dancer, performing at London’s famous Windmill Theatre when she was just a teenager. Music is really important to her, and her Nest Hub Max allows her to call up favorite tunes whenever she feels the rhythm in her feet. She keeps her tap shoes nearby, and sometimes she pops them on when the music is playing, especially when she wants some time to herself. Having the Nest device means she can close the door and watch her favorite TV show, “Strictly Come Dancing.”

Nest Hub Max has become a much-adored companion for our residents, brightening days during what has been a tragic year for many. It’s been extremely fulfilling to see the impact this technology has already had, and I can’t wait to introduce the device to new residents, and hopefully bring more of this type of technology to the Oakland Care community.

Oakland Care and Nest help residents connect for the holidays

Editor's note: This story is guest authored by Aaron White, Business Services Manager at Oakland Care, a leading provider of residential care homes in the United Kingdom.

The current pandemic has been devastating in many ways, and as someone who works for a group of care homes, Oakland Care, it’s been particularly heartbreaking to see its effects on our residents. UK Government guidelines required care homes to ensure residents maintain a social distance from their loved ones. Visits from sons, daughters and grandchildren have always brought so much joy to our Homes, but the virus’s high impact on older people has meant that these once-welcome visits brought too much risk to their health and that of the team members. 

Our primary focus has had to be protecting people from the virus, but with that comes a risk of isolation and loneliness. So, we wanted to try and bring our residents some reprieve by offering them a new way to connect with their loved ones. As the person responsible for innovation at Oakland Care, I’ve been keenly focused on how we can use new technologies to improve our residents’ lives. In partnership with Google and Volara, we explored how technology could help  connect families, as well as help our residents explore new ways to stay entertained.

Two weeks ago—just in time for the holidays—we introduced our residents to Google for Senior Living, a solution where we could use Nest Hub Max smart displays in our care homes. We initially thought we would experience challenges setting the devices up, but we were impressed by how hassle-free it was, and the residents found them easy to use and quickly grew accustomed to them.

Image shows an elderly woman in a wheelchair with a nurse who is wearing a mask leaning over her shoulder. Bother women are looking at a Google Nest Hub Max and reading a booklet with instructions. The nurse is pointing at the screen, and the woman in the wheelchair is smiling.

Resident Sylvia Culling learns how to use her Google Nest Hub Max.

This has enabled our residents—many of whom do not use a smartphone, let alone a smart display—to learn how to easily video call someone special with voice commands, which is especially helpful for those who struggle with buttons or remembering how to use technology. It’s sparked once again that warm feeling and those bright smiles that come from being face-to-face with their children, sharing a memory with an old friend or seeing their grandchildren laugh and play. Residents have also enjoyed using voice commands to listen to favorite songs on YouTube Music, the latest football scores or news and weather forecasts. 

Take Winnie, a resident at Lambwood Heights, one of our care facilities. She was used to seeing her two daughters, Carole and Margaret, almost every day before the pandemic. With a new Nest Hub Max in her room, she can dial them up for a phone or video call whenever she wants to. It gives her control over when and how she speaks to her loved ones and has really helped her feel more content over this period. 

An elderly woman with brown hair wearing a sweater looks at Nest Hub Max screen that's playing a video of people tap dancing on it. The device is sitting on a table where she also has family photos in frames.

Winnie enjoys watching old tap dancing films in her room.

Winnie used to be a dancer, performing at London’s famous Windmill Theatre when she was just a teenager. Music is really important to her, and her Nest Hub Max allows her to call up favorite tunes whenever she feels the rhythm in her feet. She keeps her tap shoes nearby, and sometimes she pops them on when the music is playing, especially when she wants some time to herself. Having the Nest device means she can close the door and watch her favorite TV show, “Strictly Come Dancing.”

Nest Hub Max has become a much-adored companion for our residents, brightening days during what has been a tragic year for many. It’s been extremely fulfilling to see the impact this technology has already had, and I can’t wait to introduce the device to new residents, and hopefully bring more of this type of technology to the Oakland Care community.

Creativity in a crisis

As the realities of a global pandemic sank in and the UK went into lockdown, children and young people employed their everyday surroundings as inspiration for creativity. Kitchen tables, living room floors and gardens were transformed into art studios. The hand-drawn rainbows that started appearing in windows across England in early spring were one of many signals that young people want to be heard, and that they are able to respond to the current crisis in an artistic way. 


Google Arts & Culture has teamed up with Arts Council England to collect these voices and allow young people to express themselves on a global platform. Arts Council England, dedicated to promoting the performing, visual and literary arts in England, launched The Way I See It at the start of the summer. Working with five cultural organizations, they invited children and young people across the country to stretch their creative muscles as they responded to the effects of the COVID-19 crisis. The partner organizations—English National Opera, BALTIC, Company Three, Dancefest and Heart & Soul—set out challenges such “Lockdown Aria,” “This Is My Statement” and “Half A Minute Movie,” which invited 30-second films inspired by a newly acquired skill.
I was inspired by communities coming together during lockdown and I felt it was a good thing to document what had happened. Ben from Birmingham, age 13

Now, Google Arts & Culture has provided the projects with a permanent digital home. Explore this playful and personal collection of spoken word, film, visual art, photography, music, dance and more created during lockdown, as well as new pieces produced in response to a series of summer challenges. It’s an engaging depiction of life in 2020 as experienced by 170 people aged between 2 and 28 years old. Visit g.co/TheWayISeeIt to explore the whole collection. 

  • Zooming by Danielle, Arts Council England.jpg

    "Zooming" by Danielle, Arts Council England

  • Spots and Stripes by Louis, Arts Council England.jpg

    "Spots and Stripes" by Louis, Arts Council England

  • Self Portrait and Things by Savannah, Arts Council England .jpg

    "Self Portrait and Things" by Savannah, Arts Council England 

  • Rainbow by Matilda, Arts Council England.jpg

    "Rainbow" by Matilda, Arts Council England

  • Parents by Mia Takemoto, Edinburgh College of Art.JPG

    "Parents" by Mia Takemoto, Edinburgh College of Art

  • No Place Like Home by Esme Plumb, London College of Fashion.png

    "No Place Like Home" by Esme Plumb, London College of Fashion

  • CIN ! CIN ! by Ruibing Cai, Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna .PNG

    "CIN ! CIN !" by Ruibing Cai, Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna

In addition to this collaboration with Arts Council England, Google Arts & Culture has also worked with several European art schools to virtually exhibit their students’ responses to the crisis. For Room with a View, young artists were asked to create a piece of art from or of their window—a fitting symbol, as windows have functioned throughout art history as both barriers and connections to the outside world. Students from Accademia di Belle Arti Bologna, École Camondo, Central Saint Martins, London College of Fashion and Edinburgh College of Art responded with over 150 submissions, ranging from acrylic and oil to video. The final collection has been curated by Amira Gad, Head of Programmes, Light Art Space (LAS), to draw out some common themes like Nostalgia, New Perspectives and Reimagining Spaces. Discover the full collection at g.co/roomwithaview.

I’m using Google Maps to plan summer family fun

Due to COVID-19, this is the summer for staycations and local day trips. In London, where my family and I live, we’re trying to figure out what that looks like for us. We have a toddler, so our ideal day trip is somewhere she can run around and we can have a picnic—and where the public restrooms have reopened (or, failing that, a discreet wooded area…). 

So how do I find a destination that checks all our boxes? Here’s what’s worked.

Screenshot of Weald Country Park Google Maps listing


Meet at a fun halfway point

My cousin and her family live about a two-hour drive from us, and when lockdown lifted we were more than ready to meet up. But instead of driving all the way to them—a four-hour round trip is a struggle for even the most patient of toddlers—we had the idea to meet up at a halfway point. 


But how do you find that halfway point? That space between us was a no-man’s land where neither of us knew of any parks or nature reserves or anywhere that would be suitable for two energetic toddlers. So I used Google Maps to find the rough halfway point. Then I filtered by “Attractions” (you can also choose “Parks” or “Restaurants” or other categories) to see what came up. I quickly landed on Weald Country Park, which boasts a 4.5-star rating, almost a thousand reviews and a promising description: “Fallow deer, a visitor center & hiking.”

Screenshot of reviews of Weald Country Park.png


Read the reviews

Deer-watching had the potential to keep toddlers occupied for at least one minute. A visitor center indicated parking and bathrooms. And hiking probably meant that picnicking was easily an option. But to double-check these critical questions, I relied on the kindness of strangers who had posted recent reviews and ratings. Local Guides and other people who contribute to Google Maps are very helpful in offering information about how much they liked (or didn’t like) their trip, and many of them have the same topics on their mind that I do. Since you can sort reviews by date, it was easy to see the most relevant ones—i.e., those that have been filed since lockdown lifted—for current info on toilets (yes), parking (yes, but it’s expensive), and whether the playgrounds have reopened (yes, very recently). 

screenshot of photos from Weald Country Park.png


Browse the photos and Street View

To really get a feel for a place, sometimes there’s no replacement for a photo. Happily, many Google Maps contributors feel the same way, so it’s often very easy to find recent photos of the places you’re thinking of visiting. And for a 360-degree panorama, I can drop the pin and check out the scene on Street View. I soon discovered that, in addition to deer, Weald Country Park is home to cows and ducks, making it more or less heaven on earth for two two-year-olds.

Screenshot of list of saved places.png

Save places and make lists

I know that we’ll want to meet up with my cousin’s family again soon, and there were a few other nearby nature reserves that looked equally promising. So I tapped the “Save” button to start a list I could refer back to. I can even share it with my cousin so we can work on the list together. Google Maps puts a pin in them too, so the next time I’m scouting the area I’ll see little flags helpfully highlighting them for me.


Contribute your own review

If you found someone’s review or photos helpful, why not pay it forward by posting your own? If you’ve found information that needs updating, like a store’s opening hours, or if you want to let people know how your experience of a place matched up to expectations, click on the Contribute button at the bottom of the screen on the Google Maps app and share your knowledge.