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Yesterday marked the start of the 7th year of Google Code-in (GCI), our pre-university contest introducing students to open source development. GCI takes place entirely online and is open to students between the ages of 13 and 17 around the globe.

Open source software makes up the backbone of the internet, from servers and routers to the phone in your pocket, but it’s a community-driven effort. Google Code-in serves a dual purpose of encouraging young developers and ensuring that open source communities continue to grow.

The concept is simple: students complete bite-sized tasks created by 17 participating open source organizations on topic areas of their choice, including:

• Coding

• Documentation/Training

• Outreach/Research

• Quality Assurance

• User Interface

Tasks take an average of 3-5 hours to complete and include the guidance of a mentor to help along the way. Complete one task? Get a digital certificate. Three tasks? Get a Google t-shirt. Mentor organizations pick finalists and grand prize winners from among the 10 students who contributed most to that organization. Finalists get a hoodie and Grand Prize winners get a trip to Google headquarters in California where they meet Googlers, mentors and fellow winners.  

Google Code-in began with 361 students from 45 countries and has grown to include, in 2015, 980 students from 65 countries. You can read about the experiences of past participants on the Google Open Source blog. Over the last 6 years, more than 3,000 students from 99 countries have successfully completed tasks in GCI.

Student Ahmed Sabie had this to say, “Overall, Google Code-in was the experience of a lifetime. It set me up for the future by teaching me relevant and critical skills necessary in software development.”

Know of a student who might be interested? Learn more about GCI by checking out our rules and FAQs. And please visit our contest site and read the Getting Started Guide. Teachers, you can find additional resources here to help get your students started.

Yesterday marked the start of the 7th year of Google Code-in (GCI), our pre-university contest introducing students to open source development. GCI takes place entirely online and is open to students between the ages of 13 and 17 around the globe.

Open source software makes up the backbone of the internet, from servers and routers to the phone in your pocket, but it’s a community-driven effort. Google Code-in serves a dual purpose of encouraging young developers and ensuring that open source communities continue to grow.

The concept is simple: students complete bite-sized tasks created by 17 participating open source organizations on topic areas of their choice, including:

• Coding

• Documentation/Training

• Outreach/Research

• Quality Assurance

• User Interface

Tasks take an average of 3-5 hours to complete and include the guidance of a mentor to help along the way. Complete one task? Get a digital certificate. Three tasks? Get a Google t-shirt. Mentor organizations pick finalists and grand prize winners from among the 10 students who contributed most to that organization. Finalists get a hoodie and Grand Prize winners get a trip to Google headquarters in California where they meet Googlers, mentors and fellow winners.  

Google Code-in began with 361 students from 45 countries and has grown to include, in 2015, 980 students from 65 countries. You can read about the experiences of past participants on the Google Open Source blog. Over the last 6 years, more than 3,000 students from 99 countries have successfully completed tasks in GCI.

Student Ahmed Sabie had this to say, “Overall, Google Code-in was the experience of a lifetime. It set me up for the future by teaching me relevant and critical skills necessary in software development.”

Know of a student who might be interested? Learn more about GCI by checking out our rules and FAQs. And please visit our contest site and read the Getting Started Guide. Teachers, you can find additional resources here to help get your students started.

Like anyone who has searched for a job at some point in their lives, I know from experience how hard it can be to find the right role. You can spend days scouring job postings that are scattered across the web, flicking through newspapers or dropping into local employers, yet still struggle to find a job that suits you. Employers may be feeling the impact of this too: three quarters of U.K. employers face talent shortages and have issues filling open positions with the right candidate.

Today, more people are turning to Google to find information about their next role. We have a long history of using our technology to connect people with information, so we’re excited to bring a new job search experience to Google to connect people in the U.K. to job opportunities. This new feature in Search lets you more easily explore jobs from across the web and find job postings that suit your needs and skills.

Starting today, when you search for “jobs near me,” “teaching jobs,” or similar queries in English in the U.K., you’ll have the option to click through to a feature that lets you explore jobs from across the web that meet your unique needs. You can access salary information, reviews and ratings of the employer and different options to apply for a job, or use a location filter to see jobs in the areas that are convenient for you. Thanks to Google Maps, if you’re signed in, you’ll even be able to see how long it would take to commute to a job from your home.

Searching for a job can take time, and keeping up with new jobs that are posted throughout the day can be impossible. Now in Google Search you can save individual jobs with a single tap so that they are accessible across any of your devices. And if you step away from your job search, you can stay in the loop on opportunities that interest you by turning on alerts to receive an email notification whenever new jobs arrive.

The new jobs experience in Search is the result of deep collaboration with the job-matching industry, and benefits both employers and job seekers. We first introduced this experience in the U.S. last year, and it’s now live in several countries. Since launching it, we’ve seen 130 percent more companies showing jobs in Search and connected tens of millions of people around the world to new job opportunities.

In the U.K., we’re working with organizations from across the job-matching industry to bring you the most comprehensive listing of jobs, like The Guardian Jobs, Reed.co.uk, Haymarket, Gumtree, The Telegraph, Reach plc's totallylegal, CV-Library and totaljobs.com. This means anyone searching for jobs on Google will see postings from these sites and many others from across the web as soon as they’re posted. To ensure even more jobs are listed over time, we’re publishing open documentation for all jobs providers detailing how to make their job openings discoverable in this new feature.

This launch also builds on the commitment we made last year to help 100,000 people in the U.K.find a job or grow in their career by 2020. We’re doing that through our Google Digital Garage program, which gives anyone free training in digital skills and products to help grow their career, business or confidence. So far we’ve helped tens of thousands of people find their next job through free training at four city-center hubs and with partners across the U.K.

Whether you’re a recent graduate looking for your first job, a parent supporting a growing family, or simply hunting for your dream role, we hope this new experience on Google will help make the job search simpler and connect you with your next job.

You’re right that Facebook has been a bit ambiguous about exactly what’s going on with it accessing your phone’s microphone. It’s darn troubling. Facebook insists it “does not use your phone’s microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed.” But even if Facebook is in the clear, can we trust that every single app and program that has access to the microphone is using it only when we think and only how we’re expecting?

Fortunately iOS, the operating system that runs on your Apple iPhone, is pretty locked down so it’s really, really hard for apps to gain access to the microphone other than through the official paths. And that means you have the ability to see a list of every program on your phone that’s requested microphone access, which you’ve granted, and even a way to easily turn off access if you just don’t really trust some of ’em.

Android’s a bit more of the wild west, but there’s a similar feature if you’re not an iPhone owner.

With an iPhone, however, just jump into Settings and swipe top-to-bottom to reveal the search box. Then type in “microphone”:

There’s one match, as you can see, and it’s exactly the right one, in Privacy!

Tap on it to jump straight to the correct spot. It will show you a list of every app that has requested access to your microphone and which you’ve granted that permission:

You can see that I’m pretty open with my permissions, allowing just about every program other than Instagram access to my microphone. I never post videos on Instagram so it doesn’t need access. But a closer look makes me wonder a bit why other apps are needing microphone access, like Nest and Nexia. Both part of my home security system, I really don’t need a voice interface to use them. Or SleepScore Max, a sleep analysis program. Why does it need access to my mic?

To revoke access is easy, just tap and drag to change the switch setting adjacent to the program:

While you’re here, by the way, tap on the “< Privacy” on the top left so you can see all the other privacy settings you have access to within iOS 11:

Quite a lot to pay attention to, isn’t it? Let’s have a glimpse at just one as a quick example: Camera. If you’re concerned about what apps can access your Microphone, I’m pretty sure you’d be curious about your camera too, right? Tap on “Camera” and you can see:

Lots and lots of apps need access to my camera. Why? Well, that’s on an app-by-app basis, of course, but as with anything else, if you’re uncomfortable with a specific app having access to your camera, you can disable it the same way you can disable microphone access.

Hope that helps you wrest back control of your privacy. It’s important.

Pro Tip: While you’re here, check out our extensive iPhone help area too, please. Thanks!

The post Which iPhone Apps can Access the Microphone? appeared first on Ask Dave Taylor.

Computer manufacturers seem to have decided that DVD movies are good enough for computer screens, and it’s not easy to find a laptop or desktop computer with a Blu-Ray player. Which is rather weird since computer screens generally have far higher resolution screens than most non-4K televisions. Fortunately, you can pick up an external Blu-Ray drive for surprisingly cheap, units like the Mac and Windows compatible Pioneer BDR-XS06.

I’m a firm believer in the right to view purchased movies on the device of my choice too, so if I own a Blu-Ray copy of, say, Blade Runner 2049 or Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, why should I be trapped having to watch it on my TV while at home if I’m heading out on a business or pleasure trip? Problem is, converting a physical copy of a movie into a digital copy that’s portable to whatever gear you own isn’t so easy. Unless you have a program like Blu-Ray Ripper from Leawo Software.

BD Ripper, as we’ll call it informally, is actually part of a much bigger software suite called Leawo Professional Media, a suite that lets you dupe Blu-Ray discs, rip DVDs and much more. For our purposes, however, it’s just making a digital copy of a Blu-Ray movie that’s of interest, and that’s BD Ripper.

Through some serendipity, Lionsgate just sent us a copy of the fun, somewhat campy horror film Beyond Re-Animator for review so that’ll be perfect for a demo. The film is the third in the Re-Animator series and again stars Jeffrey Combs as the creepy Dr. Herbert West. If you like zombies and creepy creatures, well, this is going to be a great addition to your movie library!

But I wanted a digital copy of the film so I could watch it on my MacBook (a computer without an optical drive) while on the road. It’s a perfect task for BD Ripper.

You can see that by applying the license for Blu-Ray Ripper it also unlocks DVD Ripper too, which means that I can make copies of just about every movie disc I own (with the exception of the dozen or so 4K UltraHD discs I have, but no computers can manage those yet).

A click on Blu-ray Ripper in the program, after plugging in the Pioneer external Blu-Ray drive and inserting the Beyond Re-Animator disc, and the program automatically analyzes the inserted media and figures out which of the many tracks is the actual movie…

I’ve jumped ahead a few minutes to get to the opening titles, as you can see above.

I can make a copy of the entire disc, including all extras, but it’s just the movie I’m interested in, so the tab “Main Movie” is the best option. A click on “OK” lets me proceed. The default output format and estimated file size are shown in a simple one-line queue entry:

Notice that at standard HD resolution (1920 x 1080) the resultant output file is anticipated to be 5.81GB. For a 96 minute movie. The benefit of Blu-Ray is that the movie is beautiful and in high resolution, so trying to compress the output into 500MB is a bit goofy, dontcha think?

Turns out that different output formats do produce different size results, however, so it is worth a bit of experimentation to figure out what’s going to work best for you. My recommendation is always to use the largest possible size you can work with – so the movie looks great – but your disk space might be a bit tighter so try a few different output formats to identify which works best for your  needs.

To change the output format, I’ll click on the default format. In this case, “MP4 Video“. A small window pops up with a bit more detail about this particular configuration:

From this point, a click on “Edit” lets you tweak things, but “Change” is more interesting, so click on that to see what options there are for output formats…

Wondering how to play all these different formats on your own devices? I am a huge fan of VLC, an open source video player that can handle every format I’ve ever tried to view, including MP4, MOV, AVI and MKV.

Look more closely because you can also choose by “Device” too, as a single click on that tab reveals:

There are also presets for Apple, Sony, HTC, Motorola and other devices if you don’t have a Samsung device. Very handy, I’ll say!

Once you’ve picked out the format desired, a click on “Convert” lets you identify the desired output folder:

Notice that I’m saving the image directly to OneDrive. It’s a handy way to have it ready to copy onto my other devices since Microsoft OneDrive is available for just about every device in the market. Also notice that the estimated file size went from 5.8GB to 6.10GB. The program is just guessing at this point, however, so I won’t know the final size until the rip is done.

Let’s get this movie copied already! To do that, simply click on “Convert“. Then you’ll see a progress indicator:

You might think that the process of reading a Blu-Ray movie, converting it to a digital version and writing that to disk is going to be slow but Leawo Prof. Media does a surprisingly fast job and the rip completed in just a bit over 45 minutes on a fairly middle-of-the-road HP Windows 10 laptop. On a high end, tricked out PC it would likely be significantly faster.

Finally, once done it’s just a .AVI digital file, so with a bit of help from VLC for the Mac, I can indeed watch Beyond Re-Animator on my MacBook as desired:

That’s it. I found Leawo Prof. Media Blu-Ray Ripper easy to work with and surprisingly fast with such a computational intensive task as video stream conversion. If you too want to gain portability from your Blu-Ray movies, it’s definitely one to check out.

Leawo Prof. Media Blu-Ray Ripper, from Leawo Software. $44.95 for Windows or Mac. 

Disclosure: Leawo Software sent us a license for the software in return for this review.

The post Rip Those Blu-Ray Movies with Leawo Blu-Ray Ripper appeared first on Ask Dave Taylor.

I've been told I have a flair for the dramatic (see byline), but if I were you, I'd stay away from ladders and look out for black cats today. Friday the 13th inspired lots of searches this week, and here’s a look at a few of the other trending searches, with data from the Google News Lab.

Today is Friday but also National Fry Day, as if I need another excuse to shove fried potatoes down my throat. If search interest is any indication of America’s fav fry, McDonald’s would take the top spot, followed by Burger King, Wendy’s and Five Guys. If you’re waffling over the best type of fry, curly fries are a cut above—they’re searched 14 percent more than waffle fries. Oh but wait, there’s more healthy food to celebrate as Sunday (or shall I say Sundae) is National Ice Cream Day. Search interest in frozen treats always spikes each summer, but July 2018 has recorded the highest search interest ever for ice cream in the U.S., great work everyone! More of a fro-yo guy myself.

The planets are in retrograde, plus it’s Friday the 13th which explains my wild hormonal swings this week. Looks like Nevada is the most intrigued by this spooky day as it holds the top spot for all-time search interest in Friday the 13th. You do you, Nevada. Looking further into the data, one of the top-searched questions around this trend is, “Is today Friday the 13th?” (Might be quicker to glance at a calendar). If you’re really into Friday the 13th and you live in Arizona, you can get inked for $13, and people have been flocking to Google to figure out where they can get those services.

You know what they say, mo money, mo problems, but my life is already pretty problematic so might as well sprinkle a few million on top. We’ve got a massive lotto drawing coming up, and people from New Jersey, Maryland and Massachusetts are searching the most for that $340 million cash prize. One of the top-searched questions about the lottery was, “What to do when you win the lottery?” Glad you asked. I’d buy an island, and plant a bunch of bushes, then trim those bushes to depict scenes from my favorite “Friends” episodes and run around on the island drinking mimosas listening to Taylor Swift. Ugh, one can dream.

The world watched with intrigue and optimism as the Thai soccer team, trapped in an ocean cave, were rescued in a three-day operation involving 19 divers. Search interest in Thailand is at an all-time high in the U.S., having spiked by 600 percent this month, but Singapore, New Zealand and Australia had the most searches worldwide. Everyone made it out safely through the maze of rock and rope, complete with plastic cocoons and floating stretchers.

It’s been said that we’re living in the golden age of television, lucky us! Emmy noms are hot off the press, and one of this week’s top-searched questions about the awards was, “Who won the most Emmys?” We’ll have to wait until September to find out, but here are the winners for the week’s most-searched shows: of the nominees for Outstanding Drama, it’s “Game of Thrones.” And for a comedy series, it’s “Atlanta.” And for best show of all time, “Friends.” Okay made that one up, but man, that show is great.

Have you ever dreamed of the perfect summer vacation? If it includes endless blue skies, colorful cafes, or ancient cobblestone streets, check out the latest round of shots from #teampixel’s favorite summer spots.

When you go on your next adventure, remember to take us with you by tagging #teampixel. You might find yourself featured on The Keyword, @google or @madebygoogle the next time we’re looking for some cool inspiration on these hot summer days.

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  @zoom.in.2.life spread their wings over the beautiful bridges of Rome.

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  These blue waters show  @the_salama views of the egyptian mediterranean.

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  The clever @nickbakradze took a photo with a photobus in Georgia, while @hripkodmitry almost had us fall over at the wonder of these precariously painted cups.

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  @chad.ht showed us rustic red hills that were 33 million years in the making.

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  This blue window transformed @spacegirl.spiff into a modern Matisse.

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  @karensandiego fell in obsession with these blue Portuguese azulejos.

Until very recently, I would have said that you should set up a second Google account and use that when you were exploring YouTube and didn’t want any sort of history. In fact, that’s still a pretty good solution if you want to sidestep history, recent searches, recommendations and similar (even on sites as benign as Amazon.com). Google must have been paying attention to how people use YouTube, however, because the version of YouTube for Mobile that’s now available for Android users includes a simple but effective incognito mode!

By itself, any sort of incognito mode isn’t going to completely hide what you’re doing because there are still domain name lookups (if it’s Google Chrome incognito mode) and specific URL requests logged at a lower level of the interaction. For regular folk, however, it’s more than enough to ensure a reasonable level of privacy. Not enough? Then you might want to check out a VPN too, for your computer, mobile devices, etc. Here’s a video I made about it: Why You Need a VPN.

But let’s get back to that Android solution! Make sure you have the very latest version of the YouTube app on your Android device, then launch it.

That’s a pretty typical home screen, though hopefully your videos are a bit more interesting than these two that YouTube’s decided I would find fascinating.

The skills needed in today's workplace are changing fast. A recent report from McKinsey forecasts that the demand for technological, cognitive, creative and interpersonal skills will accelerate by 2030.

Despite technology offering more learning options than ever before, we haven’t yet figured out a way that this can truly benefit everyone. Take, for example, the early enthusiasm for bringing university content online to democratize higher education—and the sobering reality that these online courses are overwhelmingly used by people who already have a higher education. We learned from a recent IPPR report that it is vital for digital skills programs to address a diverse audience and provide skills for the future as well as skills for immediate use. And as the labor market transforms, it's clear we need a more flexible model for facilitating reskilling and lifelong learning for both current and future workers.

So how can we make sure that technology supports lifelong learning for those who need it most? About a year ago, we launched the Google.org Work Initiative, a $50 million fund to support social innovators tackling this question. In addition, since 2015 our Grow with Google programs have been equipping people with the digital skills they need to succeed in the digital economy. What we’ve learned from our Google.org and Grow with Google collaboration with European partners and social entrepreneurs is that making lifelong learning a success requires four tactics: working with organizations who are on the frontline of serving the most disadvantaged, developing clearer signals about the pay-off of engaging in learning new skills, using technology to drive incentives to persevere throughout the learning experience, and developing better ways to signal skills to employers.  

First and foremost, learning must continue to become more accessible. The biggest opportunities for people to upgrade their skills are at work, but the options to retrain are few for those without a workplace. According to research from the European Commission, only 9 percent of people who are out of work have access to upskilling opportunities, compared to almost one in two people on permanent contracts.

To tackle this, public institutions and nonprofits must integrate skill-building opportunities into their programs. Google.org grantee Bayes Impact, a tech nonprofit in France, is an example of this approach in action. Bayes's machine learning-powered search assistant recommends training resources and learning opportunities for people who are out of work. With an unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent in France, Bayes helps millions of job seekers fill their skill gaps through smart technology and a partnership with the country's national unemployment agency.

We know that time and financial investment are key considerations when people think about engaging with new learning opportunities. This means that the pay-off must be clear for learners from the outset. If people don't feel like training will lead them to a better life, there's little chance that they'll take advantage.

A practical way to address this is by helping learners clearly identify the benefits of engaging in a particular course at the beginning of their journey. OpenClassrooms, one of Europe's leading providers of vocational education online and another organization we’re supporting, does this by promising to reimburse course fees if learners haven't found a job six months after completing their certificate. They've also partnered with European government agencies to get official accreditation for several of their courses, further ensuring that the value of a commitment to learning is clear.

The most effective learning experiences are those built with completion in mind. A couple of years ago, the online learning platform Coursera shared that only 4 percent of its users completed the course and earned a credential. When we built the Google IT Professional Support certificate—a Grow with Google program that enables anyone to become an IT support specialist in eight to 12 months without a college degree—we thought carefully about how to ensure as many people as possible complete a course.

One thing we found to be useful is to support blended learning experiences, where online learning is complemented by in-person coaching and meetings with other students. To achieve this, we've partnered with nonprofit organizations to bring an additional layer of support for students to the Google IT Support Professional Certificate. In Germany, we've piloted this approach with Kiron, a nonprofit that is supporting refugees to continue their education and provide access to employment opportunities.

We’ve also been experimenting with using machine learning to identify when students might be in need of support to help them keep going with a course. For example, we’ve rolled out machine learning prompts that show up at key moments as a means to motivate learners.

The final piece of the puzzle is to enable people to showcase their abilities in a format that's convincing to employers. French social enterprise Chance, another one of our grantees, uses a semi-automated system to match companies with candidates who have the capabilities they require but don’t necessarily have access to the professional networks who can help their resume stand out of the pile, or don’t know what employers are looking for and therefore don’t know how to express their own abilities. Backed by AI, projects like these enable a wider pool of job seekers to find the right opportunities for their skill set.

The labor market will continue to evolve, and technology can ensure we keep pace with the growing demands of the future workplace. As our European partners show, it's possible to improve the access, design and experience of learning new skills—putting lifelong learning for everyone firmly within our grasp.

We believe that measurement you can trust is critical for brands trying to understand the impact of their marketing. But as the customer journey has become more complex, measurement has become increasingly challenging. And while Google strives to build great solutions, some marketers prefer to rely on third-party measurement solutions.

That’s why we’re announcing Google Measurement Partners, a program that brings together new and existing partnerships to offer brands a variety of options to measure their advertising media.

The program is launching with 20+ verified partners across seven specializations: viewability, reach, brand safety, brand lift, sales lift, app attribution, and marketing mix modeling. Partners offer various solutions that work across Google advertising products, including Google Marketing Platform (including Display & Video 360 and Search Ads 360), Google Ads, YouTube, and more. Existing partner programs like App Attribution and Marketing Mix Modeling are now included in Google Measurement Partners.

Our launch partners are recognized leaders within their focus areas and provide solutions widely used by the industry. They meet rigorous standards for accuracy and use reliable methodologies to measure KPIs that matter for marketers. And we work closely with them to ensure the solutions respect user privacy.

With trust and transparency at its foundation, Measurement Partners continues our commitment to providing both quality and choice when it comes to measuring performance and helping marketers better understand their customers. Alongside our partners, we’ll keep working to establish commonly accepted standards and advanced measurement solutions that help raise the bar for the industry.

Sorry to hear that your breakup wasn’t smooth, at least in your ex’s eyes. With the rise of digital media and social networks, staying connected even when the other party wishes otherwise is really incredibly easy. From Facebook to Twitter, SnapChat to Gmail, it’s so much easier to connect than disconnect. Most all of these services have slowly gotten the message, however, and just about all now have some variety of tools or features to help you out.

Google offers a variety of different ways you can try to block, ignore or mute your nutjob ex, ranging from complicated to really easy. You could, for example, set up an email filter that automatically trashes all of her email messages [see: How to set up a Gmail filter] or that even auto-responds with a canned message like “please stop emailing me.” or even a mock bounce message.

But let’s keep it easy. Gmail also has a “block sender” feature that automatically routes all email from that particular person direction into the Spam folder. Let’s have a look…

First off, here’s my designated blockee:

This is just a demo, of course: Chris is a great source of information that I rely on in real life. But as a guinea pig, he’s perfect too