Agosto, 2021

Ketty Lie remembers her college graduation like it was yesterday. Her mother held her hand tightly as they walked across the lawn to the ceremony and told her how proud she was that Ketty had achieved the dream she never got to fulfill herself.

That investment in education led Ketty to become an entrepreneur. Today, her company ErudiFi is focused on expanding access to education for young people across Southeast Asia. And Ketty is getting ready to start the twelve-week Women Founders Academy with Google for Startups.

We welcomed the opportunity to participate in President Biden’s White House Cyber Security Meeting today, and appreciated the chance to share our recommendations to advance this important agenda. The meeting comes at a timely moment, as widespread cyberattacks continue to exploit vulnerabilities targeting people, organizations, and governments around the world.

That’s why today, we are announcing that we will invest $10 billion over the next five years to strengthen cybersecurity, including expanding zero-trust programs, helping secure the software supply chain, and enhancing open-source security. We are also pledging, through the Google Career Certificate program, to train 100,000 Americans in fields like IT Support and Data Analytics, learning in-demand skills including data privacy and security. 

Governments and businesses are at a watershed moment in addressing cybersecurity. Cyber attacks are increasingly endangering valuable data and critical infrastructure. While we welcome increased measures to reinforce cybersecurity, governments and companies are both facing key challenges: 

First, organizations continue to depend on vulnerable legacy infrastructure and software, rather than adopting modern IT and security practices. Too many governments still rely on legacy vendor contracts that limit competition and choice, inflate costs, and create privacy and security risks. 

Second, nation-state actors, cybercriminals and other malicious actors continue to target weaknesses in software supply chains and many vendors don’t have the tools or expertise to stop them. 

Third, countries simply don’t have enough people trained to anticipate and deal with these threats. 

For the past two decades, Google has made security the cornerstone of our product strategy. We don’t just plug security holes, we work to eliminate entire classes of threats for consumers and businesses whose work depends on our services. We keep more users safe than anyone else in the world — blocking malware, phishing attempts, spam messages, and potential cyber attacks. We’ve published over 160 academic research papers on computer security, privacy, and abuse prevention, and we warn other software companies of weaknesses in their systems. And dedicated teams like our Threat Analysis Group work to counter government-backed hacking and attacks against Google and our users, making the internet safer for everyone.

Extending the zero-trust security model 

We’re one of the pioneers inzero-trust computing, in which no person, device, or network enjoys inherent trust.  Trust that allows access to information must be earned.  We’ve learned a lot about both the power and the challenges of running this model at scale. 

Implemented properly, zero-trust computing provides the highest level of security for organizations.  We support the White House effort to deploy this model across the federal government. 

As government and industry work together to develop and implement zero-trust solutions for employee access to corporate assets, we also need to apply the approach to production environments. This is necessary to address events like Solarwinds, where attackers used access to the production environment to compromise dozens of outside entities. The U.S. government can encourage adoption by expanding zero-trust guidelines and reference architecture language in the Executive Order implementation process to include production environments, which in addition to application segmentation substantially improves an organization’s defense in depth strategy. 

Securing the software supply chain 

Following the Solarwinds attack, the software world gained a deeper understanding of the real risks and ramifications of supply chain attacks. Today, the vast majority of modern software development makes use of open source software, including software incorporated in many aspects of critical infrastructure and national security systems. Despite this, there is no formal requirement or standard for maintaining the security of that software. Most of the work that is done to enhance the security of open source software, including fixing known vulnerabilities, is done on an ad hoc basis. 

That’s why we worked with the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) to develop and release Supply Chain Levels for Software Artifacts (SLSA or “salsa”), a proven framework for securing the software supply chain. In our view, wide support for and adoption of the SLSA framework will raise the security bar for the entire software ecosystem. 

To further advance our work and the broader community’s work in this space, we committed to invest in the expansion of the application of our SLSA framework to protect the key components of open-source software widely used by many organizations. We also pledged to provide $100 million to support third-party foundations, like OpenSSF, that manage open source security priorities and help fix vulnerabilities.

Strengthening the digital security skills of the American workforce

Robust cybersecurity ultimately depends on having the people to implement it. That includes people with digital skills capable of designing and executing cybersecurity solutions, as well as promoting awareness of cybersecurity risks and protocols among the broader population. In short, we need more and better computer security education and training.  

Over the next three years, we’re pledging to help 100,000 Americans earn Google Career Certificates in fields like IT Support and Data Analytics to learn in-demand skills including data privacy and security. The certificates are industry-recognized and supported credentials that equip Americans with the skills they need to get high-paying, high-growth jobs. To date, more than half of our graduates have come from backgrounds underserved in tech (Black, Latinx, veteran, or female). 46% of our graduates come from the lowest income tertile in the country. And the results are strong: 82% of our graduates report a positive career impact within six months of graduation. Additionally, we will train over 10 million Americans in digital skills from basic to advanced by 2023.

Leading the world in cybersecurity is critical to our national security. Today’s meeting at the White House was both an acknowledgment of the threats we face and a call to action to address them. It emphasized cybersecurity as a global imperative and encouraged new ways of thinking and partnering across government, industry and academia. We look forward to working with the Administration and others to define and drive a new era in cybersecurity. Our collective safety, economic growth, and future innovation depend on it.

On the 10th anniversary of Google’s presence in Colombia, we’re investing in the future of news in the country with the launch of Google News Showcase, our new product experience and licensing program for news. Colombia is now the third country in Latin America, alongside Argentina and Brazil, to provide News Showcase for readers.

Nearly 1,000 news publications globally have signed deals for News Showcase since last year. These span more than a dozen countries, including India, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Australia, Czechia, Japan, the U.K, Austria and Argentina, with discussions underway in a number of other countries. Over 90% of the publications signed up around the world represent local, regional or community news.  

When Google came to Colombia a decade ago, the tech industry was facing an important moment of evolution in the country. Internet access and mobile penetration were increasing exponentially, marking a tipping point for Colombians. We’ve been a part of that growth ever since by partnering with the news industry, the government, industry associations, advertisers and users. With News Showcase launching in Colombia today, we’re looking forward to continuing to collaborate with the news industry over the next 10 years and more.   

News Showcase is backed by our recent $1 billion global investment in news. The primary goal of News Showcase is to support news publishers that are invested in comprehensive current events journalism in the public interest by giving them a new way to curate their high-quality content on Google’s News and Discover platforms. Through News Showcase, these publishers can help connect their readers with the news that matters to them. As part of our licensing deals with publishers, we’re also launching the ability for readers to access select paywall content. This feature will give people the opportunity to read more of a publisher’s content than they would otherwise have access to, while enabling publishers to incentivize more readers to become subscribers. 

Today’s News Showcase announcement includes 24 regional and national news publications well known to the people of Colombia: BLU Radio, Caracol Radio,El Colombiano, El Diario,, El Espectador, El Heraldo, El Nuevo Día, El Nuevo Siglo, El País, El Pilón, El Universal, Hoy Diario del Magdalena, La Crónica del Quindío, La Opinión, La Patria, Noticias Caracol, Publimetro, Q’Hubo Bogotá, Q’Hubo Bucaramanga, QHubo Cali, QHubo Medellín, Semana, Vanguardia and W Radio. Over the coming months we plan to add more publications. 

News Showcase panels display an enhanced view of an article or articles, giving participating publishers in Colombia more ways to bring important news to readers and explain it in their own voice, along with more direct control of presentation and their branding. Readers who click on a News Showcase panel are directed to the full articles on the publisher’s website. This drives valuable traffic to news organizations and enables them to grow their businesses and their audience while deepening relationships with readers.

Starting today, News Showcase panels from our participating publishers in Colombia will automatically start to appear in Google News and on Discover. Readers will see panels from publishers they follow in their personalized feeds, and they might also find 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.

More support for the Colombian news industry

News Showcase is part of a broader set of Google’s efforts to help the news industry in Colombia thrive and builds on the work we have been doing with the Google News Initiative (GNI) through training, scholarships and funding. Some examples include digital skills training with publishers like El Tiempo, and a program with AMI, an association that represents Colombian news organizations, to promote responsible, objective and independent journalism. We’ve provided support for Colombian news organizations to accelerate the growth of their businesses online through the Digital Growth Program, as well as Labs like the 2020 LATAM Contributions Lab that included 5 Colombian publishers.

We all know the importance of trustworthy journalism in helping us make informed decisions that affect our lives, work and family.  That’s why we have collaborated closely with a number of fact check organizations in Colombia. For example, since 2019, we’ve provided support for workshops and training on fact checking tools with RedCheq, a network of fact checkers.  And we’ve worked on initiatives to promote the use of digital tools to combat misinformation, such as Verificracks. 

Additionally we’ve partnered with journalism organizations such as Fundación Gabo to support innovation in newsrooms and their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Covid-19 hit all sectors of society hard, including newsrooms.  We responded by funding 83 small and medium local newsrooms across Colombia in 2020 through our Journalism Emergency Relief Fund. And in the last year alone we have trained +1800 journalists with our News Lab programs. 

Over the coming months we’ll continue to work with our news partners in Colombia to incorporate their feedback as we build new features for News Showcase and include more publishers in the program for the future.

Enabling a robust and healthy landscape for news should be a shared responsibility across industries, governments and private and public interest groups.  News Showcase along with our other News products and GNI programs are a clear demonstration of Google’s commitment to support quality journalism for the people of Colombia for the next decade and beyond.  

This past year we’ve endured sickness, loss, increased stress and changes with sleep, diet and exercise. As a result, we’ve been forced to become stronger and more resilient. But strength has taken on a new meaning for most, and being strong in today’s world is more than what we can lift or how fast we can run. It’s also what the mind and body can handle. 

As our approach to strength evolves, we’re introducing Fitbit Charge 5, our most advanced health and fitness tracker, to help keep a pulse on your fitness, stress, heart health, sleep and overall wellbeing – all in a thinner, sleek design. With a brighter, color touchscreen and up to seven days of battery life (varies with use), Charge 5 delivers the convenience features you need to focus on what’s most important.

And, with six months of Fitbit Premium included,¹you’ll get deeper insights, actionable guidance and a range of more than 500 workouts,  mindfulness and nutrition sessions to empower you to do what’s best for your body each day. 

Sweat the smart way

With Fitbit Premium’s new Daily Readiness experience, coming soon to Charge 5, as well as Sense, Versa 3, Versa 2, Luxe and Inspire 2 devices, you can understand if your body is ready for a  workout or if you should prioritize recovery instead. Each morning, you’ll receive a score based on your fitness fatigue (activity), heart rate variability (HRV) and recent sleep. You’ll also get an analysis of what impacted your score, and suggestions like a recommended target Active Zone Minutes goal, along with Premium content to help you make the best decisions for your body. Charge 5 also includes built-in GPS, 20 exercise modes, automatic exercise recognition and an estimate of your V02 max. Plus, with Premium, you can access more than 200 workouts from certified trainers and popular brands like Daily Burn, barre3, obé and new high energy workouts from LES MILLS.

Reduce your stress and relax your mind

During 2020, a record-high 40% of adults said they experienced a lot of stress. To help you better manage stress, Charge 5 is our first tracker to include an EDA sensor, which measures your body’s response to stress through tiny changes in the sweat glands on your fingers. We first launched EDA last fall with Fitbit Sense and have found 70% of users reduced their heart rate during a two-minute EDA Scan session, showing these tools can help reduce stress.² 

With Charge 5 you also get a Stress Management Score in the Fitbit app, so you can see each morning if you’re mentally ready to take on more challenges, or if you need to recharge. With Premium, you get access to more than 300 meditation and mindfulness sessions from brands and experts, like Ten Percent Happier and Mindful Method by Deepak Chopra to help you manage your stress. We are also announcing a partnership with Calm, the #1 App for Sleep, Meditation and Relaxation, which will soon provide Premium members with access to Calm content.³

Deep dive into your holistic health 

We’re also helping you prioritize your heart health. Atrial fibrillation (AFib) is the world’s most common heart rhythm condition, and since launching the ECG app on Sense, users have taken more than four million assessments. The ECG app will be available soon on Charge 5,⁴ bringing a critical tool to more people at a more approachable price. Charge 5 also tracks your heart rate 24/7 and provides notifications when you are above or below your personal ranges, and while many factors can affect your heart rate, a high or low heart rate may be an indication of a heart condition that requires medical attention. 

In addition to managing your heart health, Charge 5 provides a holistic view of other key wellness metrics via the Health Metrics dashboard in the Fitbit app, including breathing rate, skin temperature variation and SpO2.⁵ With Premium, you can also track long-term trends and personal ranges.

And because sleep is also critical to your wellbeing, you’ll continue to receive industry-leading sleep tools like daily Sleep Score, Sleep Stages and SmartWake alarms. Premium members also receive a deeper analysis and guidance to improve sleep quality. 

Designed for convenience, performance and comfort

Beyond health and wellness support, Charge 5 delivers the convenience features you need. With the swipe of a finger, view your stats, make contactless payments, receive/send notifications from/to your smartphone (quick replies with Android only), and choose from 20 colorful clock faces to customize what information you want to see most. 

Ten percent thinner than its predecessor, Charge 5 has an aerodynamic design and is optimized for performance and engineered for a seamless fit. With a new AMOLED color display, Charge 5 is our first tracker with an always-on display option for added convenience to see your stats or while training. The display is also two-times brighter than its predecessor making it easy to see your stats on sunny days. You can also switch up your look at any time, choosing from lightweight silicone infinity bands, breathable sport bands, plush nylon hook and loop bands. and hand-crafted premium Horween leather bands. 

Charge 5 is available for $179.95 (USD), which includes a six-month Premium membership (for new or returning customers). Beginning today, pre-order Charge 5 online at Fitbit.com and select global retailers, with worldwide availability this fall. 

[1] For new and returning Premium members only. T&Cs apply. Premium content may not be available in all locales and may be in English only. 

[2] Based on aggregated and anonymous global data from 10,000 Fitbit Sense users who were 18+ from Dec. 2020 – Jan. 2021.

[3] Calm content only available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Japanese, and Korean.

[4] The Fitbit ECG app will be available soon on Charge 5 in select countries. Not intended for use by people under 22 years old. See fitbit.com/ecg for additional details.

[5] The Health Metrics dashboard is not available in select markets and not intended for medical purposes. 

At Fitbit, the way we think about fitness has evolved and expanded beyond mere physical strength. Today, many of us are far more eager to understand our wellness holistically, versus how many burpees we can do in a minute or comparing how much weight we can bench press. Sure, being physically strong is one depiction of strength, but this past year in particular has taught us that we need to be strong in other areas as well. Taking care of ourselves means knowing when to push ourselves to go to the next level, while also having the strength to know when to rest. 

With this in mind, we will soon be launching several new features and tools in Fitbit Premium,¹ along with the advanced insights and personalized, actionable guidance you already receive as a member, to help you reach your holistic health goals. When paired with any Fitbit device, including our new Charge 5, you’ll get a deeper analysis of your data to help you workout smarter, manage your stress, sleep better and eat well. 

Coming soon to Premium is our new Daily Readiness Score, which will use insights from your body via your Fitbit device, including your activity, heart rate variability (HRV) and recent sleep, to help you assess when you’re ready to push yourself physically — in other words, if you should workout or prioritize recovery.² By wearing your Fitbit device daily (including while you sleep), you’ll receive a personalized score each morning along with details on what impacted it, with suggestions like a recommended activity level and Premium content to help you make the best decisions for your body and make your workouts more efficient. 

Daily Readiness is built on research that proves taking time to recover can generate stronger results in the long run versus pushing yourself all the time. Pushing yourself too hard could lead to overtraining or injury and can impact your mood, sleep, appetite and weight. Over time, the guidance you will get can help you build a smarter routine that is more in tune with your body. Daily Readiness will be available in the Fitbit app for Premium members with Fitbit Sense, Versa 3, Versa 2, Charge 5, Luxe and Inspire 2 devices.

How Daily Readiness Score works

These three components are measured against your baseline, and will continue to adapt and become more personalized overtime as your fitness level changes:

Activity (fitness-fatigue):By tracking your heart rate 24/7 from your wrist, we measure the impact of daily activity on your body. Every effort counts – from running a 10K to chasing after your kids. Depending on how hard you pushed yourself recently, your activity level will fluctuate and personalize your score based on your normal exertion levels. An intense boot camp session might be a challenge for you, but a relatively easy outing for someone else. To make the most of your experience, we recommend getting at least 30 minutes of Active Zone Minutes (AZM) with activities that get your heart rate up, three times a week. 

HRV:Calculated during your deep sleep, HRV is a great measure of recovery. A higher HRV is better, meaning your body can easily transition from rest to activity, and back. Sometimes stress, overexertion or onset of an illness can lower your HRV and impact your readiness to exercise.

Sleep:Poor sleep over a few nights can make you feel fatigued today, since sleep has a cumulative effect on your body. That is why we factor in your sleep over the past several nights, not just the previous night.

A high score means your body is ready for action, while a low score indicates you should prioritize recovery. We optimize our algorithm to promote fitness improvement while minimizing fatigue. Your score is also accompanied by suggestions and associated Premium content — all in one place, delivered at the start of each day, just for you.

Work out smarter 

Depending on what your fitness goals are and what your body needs, as a Premium member you get access to more than 200 audio and video workouts that you can play on your phone or play to your TV at anytime, anywhere — from certified trainers and popular brands like Aaptiv, barre3,Daily Burn, obé, Physique 57andPOPSUGAR. 

On days when you get a high Daily Readiness Score, we will help motivate you to seize the day with a personalized AZM target paired with suggested Premium workouts. We are adding 25 new high-energy workouts from premier global fitness brand LES MILLS to our library to provide even more options for these days. Popularized in more than 21,000 gyms around the globe, LES MILLS is synonymous with high-energy and science-backed programs that can help you maximize results, presented by some of the world’s leading instructors. Workouts like BODYPUMP, BODYATTACK, BODYCOMBAT and more will transport you into a group workout and can help you get your heart pumping to meet your daily target.

Guidance to help you manage stress 

But it’s not just about being physically fit: Mental strength is a major component of overall health. Get more out of our Stress Management Score by seeing a breakdown of how your responsiveness, exertion balance and sleep patterns impact your physiological stress and overall health, along with more than 300 mindfulness sessions from wellness experts Aaptiv, Aura, Breethe, Mindful Method by Deepak Chopra and Ten Percent Happier to help you take control of your emotional and physical health. 

To further support your wellness and mental health, we are also partnering with Calm, the #1 App for Sleep, Meditation and Relaxation, which will soon provide Premium members with access to 30 pieces of Calm content in seven languages.³ Charge 5 and Sense users can start an EDA Scan on-wrist simultaneously when completing a mindfulness session in the Fitbit app to see how their heart rate and electrodermal activity changes and impacted their stress responses. Plus, Calm and any mindfulness session completed in the Fitbit app will count towards your weekly mindfulness goal. 

All of this content can help support you on days when you have a low Daily Readiness Score. We will guide you to rest and rejuvenate with dynamic recommendations, ranging from active recovery sessions like yoga or stretching, to rest and relaxation ideas like meditation or mindfulness from our expansive Premium content library. 

As a Premium member, you will be able to use Daily Readiness along with our Stress Management and Sleep scores for  a holistic look at your health and wellness each day. Daily Readiness will serve as a powerful complement, whether you’re a fitness enthusiast looking to optimize your workouts, or you need a little extra motivation to push harder and achieve your best. By taking the time to recover instead of working out hard all the time, you can enhance your fitness while reducing your risk of injury over time. 

To help you understand your body’s signs of stress, your Stress Management Score will help you gauge if you can better handle stress and take on more challenges, or if you should take it easy and recharge. Meanwhile, your Sleep Score can help you better understand your sleep quality and how you might improve. Premium uplevels your Fitbit experience by helping you better understand your readiness to exercise, how your body responds to stress, and your sleep patterns, all with additional guidance and insights to help you achieve your health, fitness and wellness goals.  

Daily Readiness will be available soon in 18 languages to Premium members globally with compatible devices  in the Fitbit app. LES MILLS workouts are available today to all Premium users, with Calm content becoming available next month.

[1] Premium content and features may change. Content may be in English only.

[2] Daily Readiness is coming soon and requires a Fitbit Premium membership. Premium content recommendations are not available in all locales and may be in English only.

[3] Up to 30 pieces of Calm content available in English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish only.

Actor, producer, and musician, Will Smith, is joining the Fitbit family as our newest ambassador. As part of the strategic partnership, Fitbit and Will have teamed up to create exclusive content across social, Fitbit Premium, and the upcoming YouTube Originals docuseries, “Best Shape of My Life.”