2021

Since we launched our first Pocket Gallery in 2018, the culturally curious from all across the globe have used augmented reality to step inside our ever-growing collection of virtual galleries created with the help of our partners from around the world. From the original Pocket Gallery that united all of Vermeer’s artworks for the first time in history, to the virtual construction of lost Bauhaus buildings, Pocket Gallery has brought numerous previously-impossible exhibitions to your AR-enabled smartphone. Today, we are making the entire series of Pocket Galleries available to anyone on the web, meaning they can now be explored on desktop and on mobiles with or without AR capabilities.

Simply open your favorite browser to discover all our Pocket Galleries in 3D. Take an art tour of the world in sound, go spelunking among some of the oldest paintings known to man at Chauvet Cave, marvel at miniatures scenes from ancient India, or discover the man of contradictions in Klimt vs. Klimt.

Explore the artifacts to read about their history from our partners. Zoom-in even closer to uncover the hidden detail of the artworks, right down to the brushstrokes. In some galleries, an audio tour will also guide you through the highlights of the exhibitions.

In addition to enabling all of our Pocket Galleries on the web, we are introducing a new exhibition to the collection in collaboration with Réunion des musées nationaux – Grand Palais (Rmn-GP) in France. The curators invite everyone on a guided tour to discover maritime tales, stormy landscapes, and shores swathed in light. The exclusive exhibition features 40 marine masterpieces from the collections of the Palace of Versailles, the Louvre and other prominent European museums.

We hope you’ll enjoy uncovering maritime mysteries through our latest gallery, and experiencing our full collection of cultural curiosities from the new perspective of Pocket Galleries on the web.

View our collection of Pocket Galleries and start exploring them on the web at the Google Arts & Culture site or discover Pocket Galleries through augmented reality in the camera tab of the free Google Arts & Culture app for Android and iOS.

Leaders at organizations across the globe are witnessing the alarming rise of ransomware threats, leaving them with the sobering thought that an attack on their business may be not a matter of if, but when.

The stakes are becoming higher. Hackers aren’t just demanding money, they’re threatening to reveal sensitive or valuable information if companies don’t pay up or if they contact law enforcement authorities. For example, if you run a healthcare organization, the impact can be even more dire – as evidenced by this new report on ransomware attacks that finds attacks against hospitals have resulted in delays in tests and procedures, patients being kept longer, and even death.

One of the main challenges to stopping ransomware attacks is the lack of comprehensive visibility into how these attacks spread and evolve. Leaders are often left with bits and pieces of information that don’t add up.

VirusTotal’s first Ransomware Activity Report provides a holistic view of ransomware attacks by combining more than 80 million potential ransomware-related samples submitted over the last year and a half. This report is designed to help researchers, security practitioners and the general public understand the nature of ransomware attacks while enabling cyber professionals to better analyze suspicious files, URLs, domains and IP addresses. Sharing insights behind how attacks develop is essential to anticipating their evolution and detecting cybersecurity threats across the globe.

Of the 140 countries that submitted ransomware samples, Israel was far and away an outlier, with the highest number of submissions and nearly a 600 percent increase in the number of submissions compared to its baseline. Israel was followed by South Korea, Vietnam, China, Singapore, India, Kazakhstan, Philippines, Iran and the UK as the most affected territories based on the number of submissions to VirusTotal.

Onajite Emerhor sits in her living room in Lagos, Nigeria, where she has been working since the start of the pandemic. “I did my hair and makeup myself this time,” she jokes, as she sits down with The Keyword for an interview about the blossoming startup scene in Africa and her role as Head of Google for Startups Accelerator Africa.

It’s been an exciting few months for Onajite and her team. They had been preparing for the Google For Africa virtual event that took place on October 6, where alongside other big announcements, they unveiled the 50 startups who received the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund in Africa.

First, some background

It’s no secret that, despite the growth of investment in Africa, startups still struggle to land venture capital. And a lot of that money goes to non-African expatriates on the continent. In fact, in 2020, 82% of African startups reported difficulties in accessing funding.

The Google for Startups Black Founders Fund in Africa invests $3 million to fund startups on the continent, providing 50 startups in Africa with up to $100,000 in equity-free cash awards. The winners also receive up to $220,000 in Google Ad Grants and Cloud credits, as well as mentorship, technical and scaling support from Google. Applications for this year’s awards opened in June 2021, and after months of review, 50 founders have been selected for the program.

According to Grow for Me founder Nana Opoku Agyeman-Prempeh, one of the Fund’s recipients, international interest in the startup scene should hopefully prompt investors on the ground to take notice: “If Google is paying attention to African startups, local investors should be paying attention as well.”

The challenges, according to the founders

Different industries have different challenges. One big area of growth for African startups is the agricultural technology field (or “agritech”). However, Nana Opoku says that the difficulties in raising agritech capital can often come down to educating investors about the impact technology can have on the farming industry.

There’s also an additional barrier to funding as a female entrepreneur in Africa. Medsaf founder Vivian Nwakah, another Fund recipient, reflects that this is no easy task: “As a Black and female founder, I have had to work a thousand times harder and do so much more to prove myself in comparison to some of my counterparts. When you look at what I had to have ready and the numbers I had to show to even get a $5,000 check, compared to my male counterparts, there is a huge disparity.”

A lot of it also comes down to investor confidence. While it’s common in the United States to raise money simply based on an idea, Tatenda Furusa of Imali Pay, a founder and recipient of the Fund, says that’s not the case locally: “In Africa, that experience is not enough to convince investors, and the journey to access funding has not been easy.”

The future of the startup scene

The startup scene in Africa is growing every day, but there are still some big shifts that need to happen to sustain it — from building investor confidence, to creating an ecosystem where startups are set up to succeed. As Onajite points out, “startups are critical to socioeconomic development and progress across so many sectors, from farming to healthcare. The startup ecosystem also needs continued growth and funding for tech hubs, accelerators and incubators, and ongoing interest and investment from tech companies like Google.” Attracting and training digital talent in the continent also remains a challenge, as well as internet accessibility and connectivity.

Despite these hurdles, Onajite remains hopeful for Africa’s startup scene: “We’re seeing progress. And with continued global and local support, big ideas and new products will continue to follow.”

Under-resourced communities across the country have long faced disparities in health due to structural and long-standing inequities. Unfortunately, the pandemic has further widened many of these gaps.

Still, health equity research in digital health remains limited. To help address these issues, we announced the Fitbit Health Equity Research Initiative earlier this year to help support underrepresented researchers who are early in their careers and working to address health disparities in communities.

Over the past decade, researchers have used Fitbit devicesin over 900 health studies, in areas like diabetes, heart disease, oncology, mental health, infectious disease and more. Today, we’re awarding six researchers more than a total of $300,000 in Fitbit devices and services to support their research projects. Additionally, Fitbit’s long-time partner, Fitabase, will provide all projects with access to their data management platform to help researchers maximize study participation and analysis.

Learn more about the awardees and their research: