2022

Tablets and foldables are my favorite devices for content and productivity. The large, portable screens are easy on the eyes and the perfect way to watch a movie, answer emails or video chat.

On tablets, we introduced Kids Space and Entertainment Space for the whole family to watch content, and spotlighted apps to stay connected, entertained and productive. And on foldables, we brought the best of Google to Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 5G and Galaxy Z Flip3 5G devices.

Today we’re introducing 12L, an update to Android 12 with features that will make tablets and foldables simpler and easier to use.

A new layout for easier viewing

The bigger the screen, the more space there is for relevant information. With 12L, we’re optimizing the display for the home screen, lock screen, notification shade, device set-up screens, settings and beyond, so they look even better on tablet and foldable screens.

For example, we heard from you that the most common reason for swiping down to your notification shade is to check and clear your notifications. On 12L, we moved notifications and quick tiles to their own dedicated columns to give you more space to view and swipe away your notifications.

When setting up a new device, you’ll also be able to see more information with a two-column layout. And, you’ll be able to make changes to features in your Settings without having to go in and out of each section. Let’s say you’re looking to change the wallpaper on your device — select “Wallpaper & style” from the navigation panel and make your pick on the side, all in one view.

A taskbar to get more done

We’ve added a taskbar to help multitaskers launch and switch between apps on the spot. You can also drag-and-drop any app from the taskbar to enter split-screen mode so you can do two things at once. You can watch a YouTube video while you scan the news, or search for accommodations for an upcoming trip in a Chrome browser while you view its location in Google Maps.

Starting later this year, we’ll bring 12L to your favorite tablets and foldables with planned updates from Samsung, Lenovo and Microsoft. And we’ll continue to build more features and functionalities to help you make the most of your larger screen devices in Android 13 and beyond.

Online security is extremely important for people in Ukraine and the surrounding region right now. Government agencies, independent newspapers and public service providers need it to function and individuals need to communicate safely. Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) has been working around the clock, focusing on the safety and security of our users and the platforms that help them access and share important information.

This work continues our longstanding efforts to take action against threat actors in this region. In the last 12 months, TAG has issued hundreds of government-backed attack warnings to Ukrainian users alerting them that they have been the target of government backed hacking, largely emanating from Russia.

Over the past two weeks, TAG has observed activity from a range of threat actors that we regularly monitor and are well-known to law enforcement, including FancyBear and Ghostwriter. This activity ranges from espionage to phishing campaigns. We’re sharing this information to help raise awareness among the security community and high risk users:

FancyBear/APT28, a threat actor attributed to Russia GRU, has conducted several large credential phishing campaigns targeting ukr.net users, UkrNet is a Ukrainian media company. The phishing emails are sent from a large number of compromised accounts (non-Gmail/Google), and include links to attacker controlled domains.

In two recent campaigns, the attackers used newly created Blogspot domains as the initial landing page, which then redirected targets to credential phishing pages. All known attacker-controlled Blogspot domains have been taken down.

Example credential phishing domains observed during these campaigns:

• id-unconfirmeduser[.]frge[.]io
• hatdfg-rhgreh684[.]frge[.]io
• ua-consumerpanel[.]frge[.]io
• consumerspanel[.]frge[.]io

Ghostwriter/UNC1151, a Belarusian threat actor, has conducted credential phishing campaigns over the past week against Polish and Ukrainian government and military organizations. TAG has also identified campaigns targeting webmail users from the following providers:

• i.ua
• meta.ua
• rambler.ru
• ukr.net
• wp.pl
• yandex.ru

Example credential phishing domains observed during these campaigns:

• accounts[.]secure-ua[.]website
• i[.]ua-passport[.]top
• login[.]creditals-email[.]space
• post[.]mil-gov[.]space
• verify[.]rambler-profile[.]site

These phishing domains have been blocked through Google Safe Browsing – a service that identifies unsafe websites across the web and notifies users and website owners of potential harm.

Mustang Panda or Temp.Hex, a China-based threat actor, targeted European entities with lures related to the Ukrainian invasion. TAG identified malicious attachments with file names such as ‘Situation at the EU borders with Ukraine.zip’. Contained within the zip file is an executable of the same name that is a basic downloader and when executed, downloads several additional files that load the final payload. To mitigate harm, TAG alerted relevant authorities of its findings.

Targeting of European organizations has represented a shift from Mustang Panda’s regularly observed Southeast Asian targets.

DDoS Attacks

We continue to see DDoS attempts against numerous Ukraine sites, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as services like Liveuamap that are designed to help people find information. We expanded eligibility for Project Shield, our free protection against DDoS attacks, so that Ukrainian government websites, embassies worldwide and other governments in close proximity to the conflict can stay online, protect themselves and continue to offer their crucial services and ensure access to the information people need.

Project Shield allows Google to absorb the bad traffic in a DDoS attack and act as a “shield” for websites, allowing them to continue operating and defend against these attacks. As of today, over 150 websites in Ukraine, including many news organizations, are using the service. We encourage all eligible organizationsto register for Project Shield so our systems can help block these attacks and keep websites online.

We’ll continue to take action, identify bad actors and share relevant information with others across industry and governments, with the goal of bringing awareness to these issues, protecting users and preventing future attacks. And while we are actively monitoring activity related to Ukraine and Russia, we continue to be just as vigilant in relation to other threat actors globally, to ensure that they do not take advantage of everyone’s focus on this region.

As food makes its way from farms and factories to store shelves and dining tables, nearly one-third of it ends up lost or wasted along the way. All that unused food negatively impacts the planet — it makes up eight percent of the world’s carbon footprint and is the food system’s largest source of carbon emissions.

To protect our planet and keep it healthy, we need to collectively cut back on food waste — for us at Google, that means doubling down on our efforts to reduce waste in our kitchens and cafes. By 2025, we aim to cut food waste in half for each Googler and send zero food waste to the landfill. To do so, we’ll prevent waste during food sourcing and procurement, improve our kitchens and cafes, and make sure excess food is repurposed or disposed of properly.

Preventing waste before it happens

Our food team serves hundreds of thousands of meals each day to Googlers across 56 countries. To prevent food waste before those delicious ingredients ever reach our kitchens, we work closely with manufacturers, processors, suppliers and distributors.

One way we’ve done this is by sourcing produce from farms that is imperfect and would otherwise be tossed — like a misshapen carrot or an apple that is slightly blemished, but still delicious. We also buy from creative businesses that make food products from upcycled ingredients — like broth made from vegetable trimmings from a processing plant.

To help the entire food system reduce food waste in their own operations, Google is also working with agricultural and food service partners to improve supply chain transparency, traceability and data tracking. For example, an early-stage team from X, an Alphabet subsidiary, worked closely with Kroger and Feeding America®️ to explore and analyze supply chain datasets using Google Cloud technology. With more data and transparency into the supply chain we can make sure excess food goes toward a better use like feeding people who need it, instead of going to a landfill.

Rethinking our kitchens and cafes

Shutting down our offices and pausing food services at the beginning of the pandemic gave us the space to think bigger about how we can sustainably support a growing global workforce.

Now that food is back on the table at Google, we’re continuing to use technology to cut back on waste in our kitchen and cafe operations. For example, Leanpath is a tool that helps chefs track what food is going to waste. They can then use that data to make changes to how they prepare, cook and serve food in cafes.

Since we started measuring our kitchen food waste in 2014, these strategies have helped divert 10 million pounds of food from our kitchens and cafes from going into the landfill. That’s equivalent to eliminating 25,000 metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere or taking 5,000 cars off the road for a year.

To work toward our food waste goals, we plan to get more innovative and develop new technologies. We’ll prioritize coming up with creative menu options that turn produce that would otherwise be wasted into tasty treats — like healthy slaw made from peeled and shredded broccoli stems.

And we’re working on technologies that can help us make changes not only in our kitchens but in commercial kitchens everywhere. For example, over at X we piloted a project that uses computer vision to automatically determine what is going into our compost bins. We need more projects like this to create a smarter food system that knows where excess food is and what state it’s in so we can make sure it gets used instead of ending up in a landfill.

Being responsible with how we dispose of food

The work doesn’t stop once the food is cooked and the meal is served. We have to think about what happens to the food next— whether it’s what we do with untouched components of our meals or what’s left on a Googler’s plate. We aim to donate the excess whenever possible or ensure that it is properly composted.

Part of managing our global food program requires having a network in place so that untouched, excess food can easily be shared with food rescue partners. We’re also sharing ways that everyone at Google can do their part to reach these goals — like each of us only taking what we know we can eat. For any food product that’s ready to be tossed, we’re working to improve our waste separation systems to make sure that composting works everywhere. We’re even piloting technology that can process organic waste onsite and smart waste collection containers that can better sort trash to divert waste from the landfill.

While we’re working hard to reduce waste in our own food operations and cafes, the biggest impact will come when the entire industry works together and adopts solutions to keep food out of landfills. That’s why last year we signed onto the Food Waste Action Plan — co-led by ReFED, the premier national nonprofit advancing data-driven solutions to end food waste — to urge the federal government to adopt ambitious food loss reduction goals. To further accelerate systems transformation, Google is providing $1M as an anchor funder to the upcoming ReFED Catalytic Grant Fund with the goal of accelerating and scaling food waste solutions in North America.

As we make progress toward our food loss and waste goals, we’ll keep sharing what we learn with others in the industry. Together, we can keep our planet healthy.

It has been over 15 years since we opened our first office in Poland. Back in those days, it had one room and could fit no more than three people. Since then, we have invested dynamically, mirroring the growing potential of the Polish economy. Now, we employ more than 1000 Googlers in the country. Only last year, we added over 350 people, opened our new office in Warsaw and launched a Google Cloud region — the first such investment not only in Poland, but in Central and Eastern Europe.

We are now making another step forward in reaffirming our commitment to Poland. We will invest nearly $700 million in the purchase and further development of The Warsaw HUB, a modern office complex right in the heart of Poland’s capital city. Google had moved into The Warsaw Hub as a tenant last year, opening a new office there — a home to teams working primarily on our most advanced solutions powering Google Cloud and its many global customers. It is already our largest site working on cloud technologies in Europe. With this new investment, across our sites in Warsaw we will have capacity for 2500 employees, with potential for future growth. We hope it also signals our long-term confidence in the potential that Poland and the region have as an attractive location for top talent and place to develop cutting-edge technologies.

Our work in Poland goes beyond supporting its digital economy, and right now we are extremely focused on helping those who need it most at this time. Last week we announced that Google will provide $10 million to local organizations helping refugees from the war in Ukraine who arrive into Poland. The funding will support both immediate humanitarian efforts and assistance for refugees in the first weeks of their stay in Poland, as well as their longer-terms needs. We will also be using Google’s spaces and resources to support those affected, including by using the Google for Startups Campus in Warsaw as a space where local NGOs can provide legal and psychological support to refugees. As the needs of those affected by the war change, we will be looking at other ways in which we can help.

Contributing to Poland’s digital growth

Over the years, we’ve seen first hand in Poland how technology can help people get through difficult times, but also to grow their careers and businesses for the future. As we continue to invest not only in infrastructure, but also in talent and knowledge, we are confident that Google can continue helping Poland’s economy use its advantages and the power of technology to support its future economic growth. Much like the last 15 years, we will continue partnering with business, academia, public sector and the non-governmental organizations in Poland to ensure that our continued investments in the country enable society to benefit from what technology has to offer.

Investing in the future flexible workplace

We also believe that the future of work in this new, digital economy is flexibility. Whilst the majority of our Poland-based employees want to be on-site some of the time, they also want the flexibility of working from home a couple of days a week. Some of our people will want to be fully remote. Our future office spaces in Poland will have room for all of those possibilities.

Over the next few years, we will be investing in the construction of the next workspaces in our new office in The Warsaw HUB to ensure that it is best equipped to meet the needs of our new ways of working. We’ll be introducing new types of collaboration spaces for in-person teamwork and inclusive meeting rooms for hybrid working as well as de-densifying the offices to improve wellbeing and providing many amenities (like outdoor terraces) to make sure that we offer the best possible work environment for the many talented people that will be joining us in Warsaw in the near future.