‘Tis the season to give back

The holidays are here, and that means eggnog lattes, festive lights and spending time with the people you love. It’s also the season to give back and help make the world brighter for those in need. Today we’re unveiling six new Global Impact Awards—totaling $11.5 million in grants—to innovators using technology to tackle the world’s toughest challenges.

This year, we’re inviting you to get in the giving groove with 12 Days of Giving—an interactive holiday calendar where you can explore a Google-backed cause, donate to what inspires you and unwrap a surprise each day—such as meeting Pamela the polar bear or experiencing how far people walk to reach clean water. To spread cheer throughout the year, download OneToday for a daily reminder to give back.

The 12 Days of Giving include our six newest Global Impact Awardees. Join me in celebrating these tech-fueled initiatives:

• Zooniverse: Advanced crowdsourced research hub that allows anyone, anywhere to help create scientific breakthroughs as a citizen scientist.
• Kiva: Finance lab that enables anyone to provide affordable loans to entrepreneurs, students and farmers in poor countries, to support people left out of traditional finance.
• Landesa and FrontlineSMS: Mobile system that transforms the inefficient and confusing process to establish land rights into an accessible, efficient way for poor farmers to get title to their land.
• Get Schooled: Online platform that provides free college prep for underserved students by aggregating resources on scholarships, tests and applications, and setting personal reminders for staying on track.
• Samasource: Platform to train data workers in developing countries and provide jobs.
• DoSomething.org: Comprehensive data initiative to empower more young people to lead and share powerful and effective social impact campaigns.

In 2013, we donated more than $100 million in grants, $1 billion in free ads and apps and 60,000 volunteer hours to nonprofits around the globe.

Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director of Google.org

Conquer the Lonely Mountain in Chrome

In “The Hobbit,” a company of Dwarves tries to reclaim the lost kingdom of Erebor from Smaug the Terrible, a fire-breathing Dragon. While the Dwarves’ quest is fraught with danger, your journey to Erebor is just a click away in “A Journey Through Middle-earth,” the Chrome Experiment released a few weeks ago from Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (MGM).

You can now follow the Dwarves’ journey to Erebor and try to outsmart Smaug on your desktop, mobile phone or tablet. But it might be wise to first pay a little visit to the folks who live in nearby Thranduil’s Hall and Lake-town—locations that recently became accessible in this Chrome Experiment—just in case you need their help against the mighty Dragon.

To best equip you on your journey, you may want to stop by Google Play. There you'll find all sorts of Hobbit-related apps, games, books, music and films*. Together with the recent recording of a Google+ Hangout with director Peter Jackson and actors Evangeline Lilly and Richard Armitage, these can also help you get up to speed for the upcoming release in theaters of “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.”

And for those of you more interested in web development than Dragon-slaying, check out the second technical case study on “A Journey Through Middle-earth” (the first one is already available on HTML5 Rocks). You can also watch a Hangout with North Kingdom, the team of designers and hackers who built it, on December 18. We'll be posting more updates for the developer community on +Google Chrome Developers.

Posted by Adrian Soghoian, Product Marketing Manager & a Fool of a Took

*Available content and promotions vary by country.

New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

Whether you’re crunching big data or tracking your family budget, you don’t want to waste time waiting for files to load or re-doing edits that were lost because your Internet connection dropped. You can now get more done by switching to the new version of Google Sheets. It’s faster, supports larger spreadsheets, has a number of new features, and works offline.

Bigger, faster spreadsheets
The new Sheets supports millions of cells and kicks many of the old size and complexity limits to the curb. Scrolling, loading and calculation are all snappier, even in more complex spreadsheets.

New features based on your feedback and requests 
Filter views is a new feature unique to Google Sheets that lets you quickly name, save and share different views of your data. This comes in handy when you’re collaborating so you can sort a spreadsheet without affecting how others see it.

Whether you’re new to formulas or a whiz at running complex functions, it’s now easier to set up and perform calculations. New function help and examples guide you as you type, and error highlighting and coloring make it easy to spot and fix mistakes.

As another time-saving improvement, text now automatically flows into empty adjacent cells—no manual merge needed.

With the improved conditional formatting, you can add rules to change the colors and styles of cells in your spreadsheet based on custom formulas.

No Internet connection? Work offline with Chrome 
You shouldn’t have to think about whether you have a WiFi connection when you want to work. So just like Google Docs and Slides, you can now make edits to Sheets offline. When you reconnect to the Internet, your edits will automatically sync. If you've edited Docs or Slides offline in the past, then you’re already set up to edit Sheets offline. If not, follow these one-time instructions for setting up offline in Chrome.

Ready to try it out? 
Turn on the new Sheets by checking the “Try the new Google Sheets” box in Google Drive settings. From then on, all new spreadsheets you create will work offline and include these new features. We’ll be adding a small list of missing features in the coming months, so if you rely on any of them, you may want to wait a little longer before opting in.

We hope you enjoy these and the many other updates that come along with the new Google Sheets, including colored sheet tabs, custom number formatting, paste transpose and more. Let us know what you think on our Google+ page!

Posted by Zach Lloyd, Software Engineer

YouTube Rewind: What you watched in 2013

A Norwegian Army Dance Troupe. An Epic Split. The Fox. And a Rap Battle with an 18th century Austrian composer.

As 2013 comes to a close, these are some of the videos, channels and moments that shaped our year. While each annual list is unpredictable (what's up, Mr. Miley Cyrus impersonator), trending videos just get bigger each year. And with 80 percent of all views on YouTube coming from outside the U.S., the global community is driving pop culture unlike ever before.

You watched The Fox more than 275 million times, making it the top trending video of 2013. You also made it a top searched Halloween costume, and you’ll maybe even read it as a children’s book. You turned out in record-setting numbers to see PSY’s post-"Gangnam Style" performance. You even made more “Harlem Shake” videos than there are people in Manhattan (1.7 million videos if you’re counting).

To celebrate all these moments, more than 60 top creators on YouTube got together and made a little video for everyone:


Here are the top trending and music videos for 2013:

Top Trending Videos for 2013
1. Ylvis - "The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)" by tvnorge
2. "Harlem Shake (original army edition)" by kennethaakonsen
3. "How Animals Eat Their Food" | MisterEpicMann by MisterEpicMann
4. "Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball (Chatroulette Version)" by SteveKardynal
5. "baby&me / the new evian film" by EvianBabies
6. Volvo Trucks - "The Epic Split feat. Van Damme" by VolvoTrucks
7. "YOLO (feat. Adam Levine & Kendrick Lamar)" by thelonelyisland
8. "Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise" by CarrieNYC
9. "THE NFL : A Bad Lip Reading" by BadLipReading
10. "Mozart vs Skrillex. Epic Rap Battles of History Season 2" by ERB

Top Music Videos for 2013
1. PSY - "GENTLEMAN M/V" by officialpsy
2. Miley Cyrus - "Wrecking Ball" by MileyCyrusVEVO
3. Miley Cyrus - "We Can't Stop" by MileyCyrusVEVO
4. Katy Perry - "Roar (Official)" by KatyPerryVEVO
5. P!nk - "Just Give Me A Reason ft. Nate Ruess" by PinkVEVO
6. Robin Thicke - "Blurred Lines ft. T.I., Pharrell" by RobinThickeVEVO
7. Rihanna - "Stay ft. Mikky Ekko" by RihannaVEVO
8. Naughty Boy - "La La La ft. Sam Smith" by NaughtyBoyVEVO
9. Selena Gomez - "Come & Get It" by SelenaGomezVEVO
10. Avicii - "Wake Me Up (Official Video)" by AviciiOfficialVEVO
... see even more top music videos.

Check out the YouTube Rewind 2013 channel for even more top lists of the year from around the world, and stay tuned at Google.com/zeitgeist next week for Google's annual look at the people, places and events that captured the world's attention this year.

Posted by Kevin Allocca, Head of Culture and Trends

Feast your eyes on new works added today to the Cultural Institute

At the Cultural Institute we’ve been taking a break from our holiday shopping to feast our eyes on a different kind of gift—the gift of ingenious art that plays tricks on our eyes.

Called Trompe l'oeil, which means “fool the eye” in French, these techniques require complete control over every detail of size, color, light and gradation of color so that a two-dimensional work appears to be three-dimensional. You can see several examples amongst the new content being launched by 34 global partners today on the Cultural Institute and across our entire collection of more than 57,000 artworks.

Enter the wonderful world of Adriana Varejão—or not, it’s hard to tell. Varejão’s O Colecionador (Inhotim, Brazil)

Trompe l'oeil has been used on things as large as a ceiling—like this fresco at the National Archaeological Museum of Ferrara which uses clever architectural form to momentarily confuse:

Don’t drop that lute! Treasure Room Fresco, 1503-1506 (National Archaeological Museum of Ferrara, Italy)

And as small as a vase:

Manufacture royale de Sèvres: Vase "ferré" en première grandeur, Vers 1765-1770 (Ephrussi de Rothschild Villa & Gardens, Italy)

Sometimes the trickery lies in the deft organization of the elements in the picture, like this one. Can you find the secret image lurking within this seemingly innocent painting of a young man and woman?

Bernardino Montañés Pérez: Caprice, 1891 (Museo de Huesca, Spain)

Other new works exhibit a similar visual trickery. This relic from the Qing dynasty comes from the National Palace Museum of Taiwan—does the cabbage look good enough to eat?

Unknown: Jadeite Cabbage, Qing Dynasty (National Palace Museum, Taiwan)

Or take a look at the Musée d’Orsay’s exhibition of its unusual history, and then compare the details of the former station to the indoor Street View imagery of today's modern museum:

The station d'Orsay in its heyday. (Musée d’Orsay)

The Musée d’Orsay on Street View

From Trompe l'oeil to archaeological artifacts, royal portraits and famous scientists, there’s a lot to discover in the latest collection, which comes from all over the world. Enjoyed the visual trickery? See what else can you spot and tell us your favorite examples on our Google+ page.

Posted by Simon Rein, Program Manager, Cultural Institute

Join Santa and his elves in the countdown to Christmas Eve

After 11 months soaking up the sun in the tropics, Santa and his elves are back at the North Pole getting ready for Christmas Eve. In addition to making toys, they need to clear the snow off 23 elf homes, candy factories and command centers in Santa’s Village.

Santa's jet-skiing all the way to the North Pole from his tropical vacation

To join in the flurry of preparations for Christmas Eve, visit the Village every day through December 24. You'll have the chance to join the elves as they catapult presents and race with reindeer—and you'll be able to send holiday wishes to friends and family from Santa himself. The elves make a little more progress each day, so be sure to stop by the Village to see the latest.

Come back to Santa's Village every day to see the newest games and scenes

Meanwhile, a team of Google engineers are working hard to track Santa’s sleigh with the most advanced maps and holiday technology available. On December 24, grab some cookies and apple cider and settle down in front of your computer, phone or TV to follow the big guy across the globe with our Santa Tracker. See where Santa’s going, the number of presents he’s delivered, and what he’s thinking throughout the evening.

Keep up the holiday cheer across all of your screens. Once the elves approve, we’ll launch the Google Santa Tracker app for Android in mid-December. Use your phone for on-the-go flight practice with the elves or cozy up near the fireplace with your tablet to follow Santa around the world as he delivers presents Christmas Eve. If you have Chromecast, cast from the Santa Tracker Android app to explore the Village or track his route right from your TV. Or, worried you’ll forget the big day? Download the Chrome extension to count down to Santa’s takeoff while browsing the web for holiday gifts.

Help the elves get ready across all your devices

Download the Chrome extension for easy Santa tracking from your browser

Be sure to come back to Santa’s Village each day to find new ways to celebrate—and from all of us at Google, happy holidays!

Posted by Sandy Russell, Elf Creative Director

(Cross-posted from the Lat Long Blog)

Give back with the first-ever donatable Hangout-a-thon on Google+

As the holidays approach and our calendars become full, it can be hard to find time to give back to the causes you care about most. Tomorrow, on Giving Tuesday—an annual one-day event that encourages people to make donations to their favorite charities—we’re making it easier for you to connect with a worthy cause through the first-ever “Hangout-a-thon” on Google+.

Starting at 9 a.m. EST tomorrow on the Giving Tuesday Google+ page, you can join nonprofit organizations working to improve clean water access, eliminate bullying, and provide disaster relief in the Philippines. Learn more about their work, ask questions and connect directly to the people they’re helping. Celebrities such as Jennifer Garner, Chris Daughtry and Sophia Bush will stop by to join in on the fun, and you can also donate to the charity of your choice while watching the Hangout.

Here’s a preview of what you can do:

• Connect with people engaging in relief efforts on the ground in the Philippines through Save the Children and UNICEF
• Join conversations with the founders of Warby Parker and TOMS about gifts that give back, moderated by our partner Mashable
• Get inspired during a morning yoga tutorial with the Africa Yoga Project in Kenya
• Hear how the Malala Fund is working to promote education as a peace-building tool in developing nations
• Participate in a quick coding lesson from Code.org, Girls Who Code and Code2040 and learn what you can do to support digital literacy

We hope you’ll participate by watching the Hangout-a-thon, donating to a cause you care about and posting about the event with #givingtuesday on Google+. And to keep the giving going throughout the holiday season, download One Today, our Android app that lets you donate to a different nonprofit every day.

Posted by Ramya Raghavan, Head of Politics and Causes for Google+