Novembre, 2021

In 2018 we began our flood forecasting initiative to help combat the catastrophic damage from floods each year by equipping those in harm’s way with accurate and detailed alerts. This work is a part of Google’s broader Crisis Response program which provides people access to trusted information and resources in critical moments. For over a decade, our Crisis Response team has been partnering with front line and emergency workers to develop technology and programs that help keep people safe, informed and out of harm’s way.

Expanding our forecasting reach

In the first three years, we expanded our program to cover much of India and Bangladesh, working in partnership with the Indian Central Water Commision and with the Bangladesh Water Development Board, covering an area with about 220 million people and sending out 40 million potentially life-saving alerts. And in 2021, our operational systems were further expanded to cover an area with over 360 million people. Thanks to better flood prediction technology, we sent out over 115 million alerts — that’s about triple the amount we previously sent out.

We’re hyper-focused on making alerts more local, accessible, actionable and accurate — the more information we can offer about upcoming floods, the better, more timely decisions people can make. Most global flood alerts only provide information on how much a river will rise (e.g. 30 cm), which doesn’t always mean people can know what that would mean for them and their village. Our flood alerts display inundation maps, which show the extent and depth of flooding right on top of Google Maps, so people can visualize this critical information more easily. Our new manifold inundation model and advances across all models allow us to scale up significantly and provide this information to many more people (and we’ll share more about this technology in the near future).

We recently launched the Google Flood Hub to make this flood data even more hyper-local. It allows you to zoom into our inundation maps where you can find information about the same flood, and focus on highly specific areas, such as a village. The Flood Hub provides the same depth and flood extent information in a more visual format that helps people to understand the current and forecasted flood situation in their area instantly. This site will be our primary resource for local, visual forecast information moving forward.

For millions of people, being able to speak and be understood can be difficult as a result of conditions that can impact speech, including stroke, ALS, Cerebral Palsy, traumatic brain injury or Parkinson’s disease. Today, we’re inviting an initial group of people to test Project Relate, a new Android app that aims to help people with speech impairments communicate more easily with others and interact with the Google Assistant.

Project Relate is a continuation of years of research from both Google’s Speech and Research teams, made possible by over a million speech samples recorded by participants of our research effort. We are now looking for English-speaking testers in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States to try out the app and provide feedback to help us improve it.

As an early tester of Project Relate, you will be asked to record a set of phrases. The app will use these phrases to automatically learn how to better understand your unique speech patterns, and give you access to the app’s three main features: Listen, Repeat and Assistant.

Listen: Through the Listen feature, the Relate app transcribes your speech to text in real time, so you can copy-paste text into other apps, or let people read what you want to tell them.

Repeat: You can use the Repeat feature to restate what you’ve said using a clear, synthesized voice. We hope this can be especially helpful in face-to-face conversation or even when you want to speak a command to your home assistant device.

Assistant: Speak directly to your Google Assistant from within the Relate app, so you can take care of different tasks, such as turning on the lights or playing a song, with ease.

In creating the app, we worked closely with many people with speech impairments, including Aubrie Lee, a brand manager at Google, whose speech is affected by muscular dystrophy. “I’m used to the look on people’s faces when they can’t understand what I’ve said,” Aubrie shared with us. “Project Relate can make the difference between a look of confusion and a friendly laugh of recognition.” Since Aubrie works on the marketing team that names new products, she also helped us name the app!

If you have a condition that makes your speech difficult to understand, you may be able to help provide feedback on the Project Relate Android app as a trusted tester. To express interest, please fill out our interest form at g.co/ProjectRelate, and the team will get back to you in the coming months.

With your help, we hope to build a future in which people with disabilities can more easily communicate and be understood.

We introduced the Nest Hub (2nd gen) earlier this year as a device that can help the millions of people looking for help with their sleep. Since then, we’ve been hard at work creating even more ways to help you get a better night’s rest. Having better insights into your snoring, coughing or sleeping environment can help you make changes that improve your sleep. Its award-winning sleep technology is powered by Soli, our miniature radar sensor that helps you understand your sleeping habits – all from your bedside with no contact and no camera. 

Introducing sleep staging

Our improved algorithms mean you get even more details about your sleep. Your Nest Hub will share information about your light, deep, REM and awake periods throughout the night. The Duration and Quality screens will tell you how long you were in each stage of sleep. Combining your sleep information with disturbance events can help you better understand what’s happening while you’re sleeping.

Sound detection updates

For those who share their sleeping space with others — partners or pets — now your display will only show coughs and snores that come from your calibrated sleeping area. Any coughing and snoring that happens outside of your area will appear on the new “Other sounds” timeline. This new timeline will also show other loud noises.

Get centered with meditations from Calm

Coming in December, the Google Assistant on Nest displays will give you access to Calm, a leading app for Sleep, Meditation, & Relaxation™ with a library of Sleep Stories, meditations, music and more. To try meditation content from Calm, you can either say, “Hey Google, show me meditations from Calm” or “Hey Google, start a meditation.” If you have Calm Premium, you already have access to the full library. If you don’t, you can access several free tracks or sign up for an account that gives you access to Calm Premium.

Enjoy a preview of Sleep Sensing for free through 2022. In 2023, Google plans to integrate Sleep Sensing into Fitbit Premium (currently $9.99 per month or $79.99 per year, subject to change and may vary by country). Google and Fitbit continue to innovate within sleep and explore areas where integration with Fitbit and the Fitbit Premium subscription can provide even more helpful sleep and wellness benefits.

These new sleep features start rolling out today, and will be available to users globally over the next few weeks. These enhancements make Nest Hub the perfect gift for (or before) the holidays — what’s better than the gift of sleep?