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Studies show that regularly writing down your thoughts and feelings can improve your mental, emotional and physical health. Despite all of journaling’s benefits, it can feel like an insurmountable challenge. 

While writing by hand is therapeutic for some, many may find it uncomfortable and tiring. Others may find an inventive way to leverage Google Doc, Keep, or Sheets to log their thoughts, but these tools are not optimized for the struggling journaler. In reality, the challenge may not be journaling itself but creating and customizing a routine that helps you get into a rhythm and document your day in the ways most useful to you.

A few months ago, I decided to put this theory to the test by building my own journaling app in AppSheet, Google Cloud’s no-code application development platform. It lets me customize my journaling experience the way I want, I was able to build the app without writing any code, and it’s been extremely useful.

The journaling app, built with AppSheet, has a form that makes it easy for me to log my moods and activities, write a few notes, and add photos. I’ve also added a list and a calendar view so I can read through previous entries.

With AppSheet, anyone can create their own custom apps, connected directly to their data in Sheets — no technical background needed. To help you create your own journaling app, without writing a single line of code,  I’ve made a tutorial video.

And that’s just a starting point. From there, try adding your own customizations, like your own activities, notification and text message reminders and charts to show trends over time. 

AppSheet lets you build and use your own personal apps for free. For example, you can build a custom workout app to help track your progress at the gym or you can build an inventory management app to keep track of inventory at your local community events. These are just a few ideas, but feel free to explore our app templates library or start with your own ideas.

Hopefully creating a custom journaling app inspires you to start writing — and dive into no-code app building at the same time.

Ready to use AppSheet? Get started now.

Last August — for the first time in my life — I had the opportunity to do something that people do every day. I called my son.

“Dad, do you realize this is the first time we’ve talked on the phone?” said my 23-year-old son Harry who lives in Hong Kong. Since birth, I’ve been profoundly deaf. In my daily life, I rely on captions and lip-reading for communication. Until recently, I haven’t been able to simply pick up the phone to chat with someone because I didn’t have a way to caption what they were saying. But Live Caption on the Google Pixel changed all of this.

Thanks to this feature, when Harry spoke his words were instantly converted to text. I was able to simultaneously read what Harry was saying and respond to him in a way that was natural and fluid.  

Since the first call with my son, I’ve called my bank manager, handyman, colleagues, family and friends. I even used Live Caption on a recent call with my doctor who noted that “it worked extremely well.” And last week, my partner asked me to make a phone call for her — never in my life could I have imagined that scenario.

Live Caption continues to delight me every day, and it’s clear how it can have a huge impact on the millions of people around the world who live with hearing loss every day. These days, I can’t wait to pick up the phone again.

Live Caption for calls is currently available in English only on Pixel 2 or newer phones. The accuracy of the captions can vary depending on the quality and clarity of the audio source. For more information check out our help center page.

Last year, I saw COVID-19 impact the lives of some of the strongest people I know because of their race, class and zip code — especially in my hard-hit hometown of Detroit. But I wasn’t the only one who witnessed this. We’ve all heard how the pandemic has affected vulnerable communities across the country due to structural and long-standing health inequities. Even so, there was no central resource to help consolidate, visualize and understand the data on a national scale. 

Over the past year a team of Google.org Fellows and I worked with the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine and a multi-disciplinary Health Equity Taskforce to understand COVID-19 health inequities. Today, we released The Health Equity Tracker (HET), a publicly available data platform that visually displays and contextualizes the health disparities facing communities of color throughout the U.S.

With $1.5 million of Google.org grant funding and over 15,000 pro bono hours donated from 18 Google.org Fellows, the HET parses through a mountain of public health data to record COVID-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations nationwide across race and ethnicity, sex and age, as well as state and county. The tracker also measures social and systemic factors — like poverty and lack of health insurance — that exacerbate these inequities and have resulted in higher COVID-19 death rates for people of color, especially Black and Latinx communities.  

Train stations are often busy, bustling places. Whether you’re reaching your final stop or catching a connection, finding your way through a complex or crowded station can be daunting. And for people traveling with wheelchairs, luggage, prams or crutches, there are even more factors to juggle.

In 2018, we brought wheelchair accessible routes to Sydney and other cities around the world. To build on this, we’ve been working with Transport for NSW to help people map out each stage of the journey inside the station. 

To help people map out their journeys ahead of time, we’re launching indoor Street View imagery for 130 train stations and a dozen metro stations in Sydney. Starting today, you’ll be able to virtually navigate interactive, panoramic imagery inside Sydney stations, so you’ll know your way when you get there. You can also enjoy the rich history and beauty of many stations, from heritage listed St James Station, to the stunning views of Circular Quay and Milsons Point – and the thriving hub of Parramatta. 

For the first time in Australia, we’re also bringing detailed navigation directions for accessible routes across 70 complex train and metro stations across Sydney to Google Maps. These tools allow people to find the best and most accessible entrances, exits, signage and paths within the station and better anticipate in-transit travel times along these pathways.

Africa is home to more than 1.5 billion people, and each country, community and person has an incredible story to tell. Through the power of technology, artists and cultural institutions are using online platforms to share their stories and engage with new audiences.

This year, we’re hosting the Africa Day Benefit Concert in collaboration with MTV Base Africa and Idris Elba. We invite you to tune in at 7 PM CAT this evening to experience a musical homage to this amazing continent, and its next generation of pop stars making headlines across the world.

The concert is the culmination of Africa Month, which we’ve celebrated through YouTube Music and Google Arts & Culture. We’ve hosted a live performance by Sauti Sol, a talk on theLeading Women in Music, and the launch of the projectÈkó for Show: Explore Lagos. Music unites Africa, and we hope the concert tonight will bring Africans and people from other parts of the world together to celebrate the continent’s roots, rhythms and records.

As we celebrate Africa Day today, we invite you to explore the continent’s rich cultural heritage through curated online experiences on YouTube and Google Arts & Culture. We hope Africans and people from all over the world will be inspired by these activities that bring together the continent’s roots and rhythms.