Traffic Payout

A new report by Marina Lu [pictured], research analyst, and Jake Saunders, VP and practice director of core forecasting, ABI Research finds that "By the end of 2013, global LTE-related cellular subscriptions surpassed 230.9 million, 3.3% of mobile subs, and will continue to grow at a CAGR of 36.6% between 2014 and 2019, to exceed 2 billion".

In early 2013 ABI forecasted 785M LTE subscribers by

Flash Networks announced that it is the"..  first mobile optimization vendor to accelerate upload speeds for messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Snapchat. Flash Networks uses patented technology to optimize LTE bandwidth utilization, resulting in up to 30% faster upload speeds for an improved user experience.

Flash Networks’ TCP-4TE [see chart below for download optimization] uses inline

This week we saw searches on everything from surprises on the court to retro reads.

Books in the news
On Wednesday, the beloved author Maya Angelou passed away at the age of 86. More than 2 million searches have taken place this week as people looked for information about her life and work. Popular queries related to the author this week include [maya angelou quotes], [maya angelou poems] and [still i rise].

Take a look, it’s in a book… on the web? More than 30 years after it first premiered, the beloved PBS show “Reading Rainbow” was in the news this week when former host LeVar Burton formed a Kickstarter campaign to fund a Reading Rainbow literacy program. In less than 24 hours, Burton had met his goal of a million dollars.

Sporting surprises
The NBA and NHL playoffs continue to dominate sports fans' minds, but this week in addition to the more expected [rangers], [blackhawks], [heat], [spurs], etc. there were a few less common sporting searches. Rapper 50 Cent threw out a first pitch for the Mets on Tuesday, and it was a little, um, off the mark. People headed to Google to look for video and GIFs of the wild pitch. Some might say 50 Cent may want to stay in da club and off the mound.

Meanwhile in tennis, French Open number-one seed Serena Williams was defeated by a lower-ranked young player, Garbine Muguruza, who grew up idolizing Serena’s game. Finally, anticipation for summer soccer is heating up. Late last week we learned that player Landon Donovan would not be included in the United States’ World Cup roster this year. Searches for Donovan immediately spiked to reach a new high for the last year, with related terms [klinsmann] and [landon donovan twitter] rising as well.

Long weekend festivities
This week marked Memorial Day in the U.S., and many Americans celebrated with [parades] and [fireworks] to honor service members, and also hit up the mall for weekend [sales]. Other celebrations took place this weekend too: amidst a host of college students walking across the dais this weekend, there was one grad who's more known for her prowess in a fictional school. Harry Potter star Emma Watson graduated from Brown University (the Hogwarts of Rhode Island) this weekend, and searches for the actress were even higher than when she presented at the Oscars (woo, education!). But no weekend wrapup would be complete without at least a mention of... yes, Kimye. The long-anticipated and not-so-secret nuptials of Kanye West and [kim kardashian] took place in Europe over the weekend, leading hordes of curious searchers to look for dirt on the dress, the rehearsal dinner and more.
Last but—in my book—certainly not least: comedian Bill Murray showed up unexpectedly at a bachelor party in Charleston, South Carolina, where he gave a toast with some life advice on finding “the one.” Because if anyone knows how hard it can be to find the one, it's Phil Connors.

Posted by Emily Wood, Google Blog Editor, who searched this week for [yamasho] and [bee dance meaning]

Earlier this month, Vivek Maheshwari was heading to the airport after a business trip in Denver when he received a public alert notification on his phone telling him there was a tornado heading his way. Luckily, the storm was still a few miles off, so he was able to find an alternate route to the airport and make it home safely.

Easy and timely access to information can make a huge difference in times of crisis—whether to help people like Vivek get out of harm’s way, or to help those affected after a disaster has occurred. The web can help by providing access to official alerts from government organizations, news reports and on-the-ground updates from social media. The key is making sure that all that information can get to those who are affected—as quickly as possible.

That’s one of the things our Crisis Response Team focuses on. Since 2010, we’ve been working to make disaster-related information immediately available and useful in a crisis, through tools like Public Alerts, Crisis Map and Person Finder. And since next week marks the start of hurricane season in the North Atlantic, we thought we’d provide a few tips to help you prepare for potential summer disasters—from tropical storms to wildfires to floods.

Make sure you’ll receive Public Alerts
Google Public Alerts, launched two years ago, is a tool that sends people alerts from authoritative sources like the U.S. National Weather Service or the Japan Meteorological Agency during emergencies. They’re accessible through the Google search app on your mobile devices and Google Chrome on your computer, as well as in search results for related queries and on Google Maps when relevant.

People have used Public Alerts to get to safety before a landslide in Colombia, set up sandbags before a thunderstorm in Utah, and get off the road before an ice storm in Kentucky. To make sure you get the information you need to know when you need it, get Google Now on your Android device, iOS device, or computer.

Public Alerts are now available in seven countries (U.S., Australia, Canada, Colombia, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan) and will continue to roll out to new countries this year.

Install emergency preparedness apps
There are a number of great apps which can help you prepare for or outlast an emergency. For example, a flashlight app can be useful if the power goes out and you don’t have access to a regular flashlight (use a regular flashlight if you can to conserve your phone’s battery). The first-aid and disaster preparedness apps from the Red Cross have a lot of valuable information. And the official FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) app has information on how to stay safe during a disaster, the locations of FEMA disaster recovery stations, and more.

And remember, when bad weather is on the way, keep your phone plugged in and follow this advice to conserve battery life on Android. If you’re using an iOS device, try these tips.

Get helpful gadgets
A waterproof phone case can help protect your phone during floods or heavy rains and a portable solar-powered charger will help keep your phone’s battery alive. It may also be a good idea to invest in a cell phone signal booster which gives you a greater chance of connecting to an operational cell tower.

Of course, tech can only take you so far, so make sure you have the basics (like a disaster supplies kit and a family emergency plan) covered too—Ready.gov is a great resource.

While it’s impossible to predict the weather, we hope these tips help you and your family prepare for the possibility of things going wrong. Stay safe this summer!

Posted by Payal Patel, Google Crisis Response Team

Wonder how all those internet Exabytes are created? Click on the animation below to see how all those capex investments are translated into our daily activities.

[see also "[Intel]: What Happens in One "Internet Minute"? " -here]




Click the animation to open the full version (via PennyStocks.la).

Nokia announced that "Celcom Axiata Berhad (Celcom), Malaysia’s premier mobile telecommunications provider and wholly-owned subsidiary of the Axiata Group Berhad, has selected Nokia’s optimization services to enhance its network, voice and data quality in Klang Valley and Kuala Lumpur.

Nokia will use real-time network information combined with the latest geolocation techniques to plan and

We launched Google Apps for Education because we believed it would help students learn more collaboratively and help educators spend less time on administration and more time on teaching. It’s been thrilling to see how some schools take “going Google” to the next level and into their own hands—coming up with even more creative ways of incorporating technology in education. Recently we came across one of these schools: Colégio Mater Dei in Brazil.

In 2013, Mater Dei deployed Google Apps for Education as part of a move to incorporate technology into the academic environment. After they started to see early results, they came to Google with a plan: create a space on campus that’s designed from the ground up to be a technology-powered learning center for K-12 students. Last week, that idea became a reality when Mater Dei launched what we’re now calling the Google Learning Space.

Transforming a part of their campus that used to be a traditional library, the school set up a high-performance wireless network in a room full of bright, colorful cushions and chairs where students can brainstorm, meet to discuss projects and talk with their teachers. There are two smart TVs with Chromecast installed, so students can project assignments, presentations and videos easily. There's a library of tablets and Chromebooks that students can use, all featuring Google Play and Google Apps.

The school’s ultimate goal is to increase collaboration amongst students and encourage them to think more creatively instead of learning by rote memorization. And so far, the results seem to be good—the school is already experimenting with new ways to teach and learn. For example, kindergarten teachers are helping students “visit” countries around the world with Google Earth and the Cultural Institute. Electronics teacher Andre Godoy is using Google Sites and Google Glass to help his students build a formula that can move a robot with a swipe of the finger. And biology teachers have started using the Google Play app Biodigital Human to help bring anatomy to life in 3D; students can add, remove and manipulate each organ of the body using the app, gaining an understanding of various diseases and how treatments are developed. Best of all, students and teachers seem more energized and excited to participate in class.

The Google Learning Space is just one example of how bringing technology into the classroom can have a real and immediate impact on both teachers and students. We’re excited to keep working on products that can help kids learn—in Brazil and around the world.

Posted by Milton Larsen Burgese, Google Head of Education, Google Brazil

Amdocs announced the ".. expansion of its big data analytics capabilities to become the first end-to-end provider of communications-specific big data solutions encompassing business and operational support systems (B/OSS), network and social media. The Amdocs big data analytics offerings include:
Amdocs big data applications .. Amdocs Insight Big Data platform ..  Amdocs DSaaS and Amdocs BI and

We’ve always been reluctant to publish numbers about the diversity of our workforce at Google. We now realize we were wrong, and that it’s time to be candid about the issues. Put simply, Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity, and it’s hard to address these kinds of challenges if you’re not prepared to discuss them openly, and with the facts. So, here are our numbers:

There are lots of reasons why technology companies like Google struggle to recruit and retain women and minorities. For example, women earn roughly 18 percent of all computer science degrees in the United States. Blacks and Hispanics each make up under 10 percent of U.S. college grads and each collect fewer than 10 percent of degrees in CS majors. So we’ve invested a lot of time and energy in education.

Among other things, since 2010 we’ve given more than $40 million to organizations working to bring computer science education to women and girls. And we’ve been working with historically black colleges and universities to elevate coursework and attendance in computer science. For example, this year Google engineer Charles Pratt was in-residence at Howard University, where he revamped the school’s Intro to CS curriculum.

But we’re the first to admit that Google is miles from where we want to be—and that being totally clear about the extent of the problem is a really important part of the solution. To learn more about our work on diversity—for our workforce, for the web and for the tech leaders of the future—visit google.com/diversity.

Posted by Laszlo Bock, Senior Vice President, People Operations

Update May 31: We updated the language of this post to correct the number of degrees black and Hispanic students earn in CS majors, which are 8 percent and 6 percent respectively, according to the National Science Foundation.

Active Broadband Networks announced the "..availability of the Active Resource Controller (ARC), a subscriber, service and application aware, telemetry-driven SDN controller for the broadband service edge. . ARC incorporates SDN protocols for dynamic control of Network Function Virtualization (NFV) infrastructure, IP flow telemetry data for visibility into network, service, subscriber and

It’s no secret that we’re obsessed with saving energy. For over a decade we’ve been designing and building data centers that use half the energy of a typical data center, and we’re always looking for ways to reduce our energy use even further. In our pursuit of extreme efficiency, we’ve hit upon a new tool: machine learning. Today we’re releasing a white paper (PDF) on how we’re using neural networks to optimize data center operations and drive our energy use to new lows.

It all started as a 20 percent project, a Google tradition of carving out time for work that falls outside of one’s official job description. Jim Gao, an engineer on our data center team, is well-acquainted with the operational data we gather daily in the course of running our data centers. We calculate PUE, a measure of energy efficiency, every 30 seconds, and we’re constantly tracking things like total IT load (the amount of energy our servers and networking equipment are using at any time), outside air temperature (which affects how our cooling towers work) and the levels at which we set our mechanical and cooling equipment. Being a smart guy—our affectionate nickname for him is “Boy Genius”—Jim realized that we could be doing more with this data. He studied up on machine learning and started building models to predict—and improve—data center performance.

What Jim designed works a lot like other examples of machine learning, like speech recognition: a computer analyzes large amounts of data to recognize patterns and “learn” from them. In a dynamic environment like a data center, it can be difficult for humans to see how all of the variables—IT load, outside air temperature, etc.—interact with each other. One thing computers are good at is seeing the underlying story in the data, so Jim took the information we gather in the course of our daily operations and ran it through a model to help make sense of complex interactions that his team—being mere mortals—may not otherwise have noticed.

After some trial and error, Jim’s models are now 99.6 percent accurate in predicting PUE. This means he can use the models to come up with new ways to squeeze more efficiency out of our operations. For example, a couple months ago we had to take some servers offline for a few days—which would normally make that data center less energy efficient. But we were able to use Jim’s models to change our cooling setup temporarily—reducing the impact of the change on our PUE for that time period. Small tweaks like this, on an ongoing basis, add up to significant savings in both energy and money.


By pushing the boundaries of data center operations, Jim and his team have opened up a new world of opportunities to improve data center performance and reduce energy consumption. He lays out his approach in the white paper, so other data center operators that dabble in machine learning (or who have a resident genius around who wants to figure it out) can give it a try as well.

Posted by Joe Kava, VP, Data Centers

Procera Networks announced it has ".. received three follow-on orders from Tier 1 broadband operators in APAC, EMEA, and LATAM totaling $3.5 million. The orders are for the continued rollout of PacketLogic solutions on their fixed and mobile networks to enhance the quality of experience for their subscribers. The orders include both hardware and software components that expand the operator’s

Ever since we started the Google self-driving car project, we’ve been working toward the goal of vehicles that can shoulder the entire burden of driving. Just imagine: You can take a trip downtown at lunchtime without a 20-minute buffer to find parking. Seniors can keep their freedom even if they can’t keep their car keys. And drunk and distracted driving? History.

We’re now exploring what fully self-driving vehicles would look like by building some prototypes; they’ll be designed to operate safely and autonomously without requiring human intervention. They won’t have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal… because they don’t need them. Our software and sensors do all the work. The vehicles will be very basic—we want to learn from them and adapt them as quickly as possible—but they will take you where you want to go at the push of a button. And that's an important step toward improving road safety and transforming mobility for millions of people.

It was inspiring to start with a blank sheet of paper and ask, “What should be different about this kind of vehicle?” We started with the most important thing: safety. They have sensors that remove blind spots, and they can detect objects out to a distance of more than two football fields in all directions, which is especially helpful on busy streets with lots of intersections. And we’ve capped the speed of these first vehicles at 25 mph. On the inside, we’ve designed for learning, not luxury, so we’re light on creature comforts, but we’ll have two seats (with seatbelts), a space for passengers’ belongings, buttons to start and stop, and a screen that shows the route—and that’s about it.

We’re planning to build about a hundred prototype vehicles, and later this summer, our safety drivers will start testing early versions of these vehicles that have manual controls. If all goes well, we’d like to run a small pilot program here in California in the next couple of years. We’re going to learn a lot from this experience, and if the technology develops as we hope, we’ll work with partners to bring this technology into the world safely.

If you’d like to follow updates about the project and share your thoughts, please join us on our new Google+ page. We’re looking forward to learning more about what passengers want in a vehicle where their number one job is to kick back, relax, and enjoy the ride.

Posted by Chris Urmson, Director, Self-Driving Car Project

 
Allot Communications announced that it "received a $5M order from a Tier-1 mobile operator for the Allot Service Gateway Tera. The Tier-1 operator requires the platform’s service enablement capabilities to introduce a large-scale subscriber offering later in the year. 

This is the 5th order for the Allot Service Gateway Tera from Tier-1 customers since the beginning of the year" [see "Allot

A new report by Diane Myers [pictured], principal analyst for VoIP, UC, and IMS, Infonetics Research finds that "Worldwide service provider VoIP and IMS equipment revenue totaled $992 million in 1Q14, an increase of 37% from 1Q13, but a sequential decline of 9% .. the standout vendor in 1Q14 is Alcatel-Lucent, rising to the top due to strong growth of core IMS and voice application server

Some quotes from a GigaOm post with Qwilt's CEO, Alon Maor [pictured]:


Since launching Qwilt in 2011, I’ve seen online video grow to be one of the hardest challenges network operators face today. In my role as CEO, I’ve overseen Qwilt’s engagements with more than 150 network operator customers worldwide - some of whom are experiencing 90% growth of video year over year which translates to 60%

A post to Google's Fiber blog by Jeffrey Burgan, Director of Network Engineering, describes what Google does to eliminate "buffering" without paid Fast Lanes - "We also partner with content providers (like YouTube, Netflix, and Akamai) to make the rest of your video’s journey shorter and faster. (This doesn't involve any deals to prioritize their video ‘packets’ over others or otherwise

Ruckus Wireless unveiled the "industry’s first carrier-class virtualized wireless LAN (WLAN) controller, the Ruckus virtual SmartCell™ Gateway (vSCG), designed to streamline the creation of highly scalable and resilient cloud-based wireless LAN (WLAN) services .. designed for use with Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi ZoneFlex™ access points (APs), the Ruckus vSCG runs as a virtual application within either the

By Lynn Peterson

Today marks the one year anniversary of the Skagit River Bridge collapse. I was just finishing dinner when I received a call saying that a section of the Interstate 5 Skagit River Bridge had collapsed and several vehicles were in the water. I knew this was not a drill and that it would certainly be a critical test for my agency moving forward.

My first thought was how many people could be hurt? As first responders arrived on scene, the Governor and I flew out of Olympia by helicopter to survey the damage. Details were

After - The completed bridge

sparse. We knew that an oversized truck appeared to have hit a support beam of the steel-trussed bridge, which was later determined to cause the collapse. Thankfully, everyone who was on the bridge was found safe. Unfortunately, the state suffered a tragic loss after the bridge collapse when Trooper Sean O’Connell was killed while managing detour traffic. He made the ultimate sacrifice serving the citizens of Washington. 

The next three months, were a challenge for impacted Skagit families, communities and businesses as well as for this agency. And with just three months on the job, I along with many other people in our state, became keenly aware of the vulnerability of our transportation infrastructure.
A lot of questions arose from the impact of the Skagit River Bridge collapse. Questions about the safety of our bridges, commercial vehicles that carry goods long distances, and what more could be done to keep people moving.


There are nearly 3,700 bridges in our state inventory, and many were built long ago and are still in good shape. With the Skagit River Bridge, many people outside of the engineering world learned new terms, “Fracture Critical,” and “Functionally Obsolete.” Simply put, Fracture Critical means if that if key supports fail, the bridge is in danger of collapsing. Functionally Obsolete is a technical term to reflect that design standard have changed, and a modern bridge would be built differently. Neither term means that a bridge is unsafe. Our bridges are inspected at least every two years, to ensure they are able to meet the day-to-day demands of traffic. With our detailed records, we can make strategic decision for improvements and extend the life of these structures.

When the I-5 Skagit River Bridge was first constructed in 1955, freight cargo wasn’t nearly as large as it can be today. Since 2008, we’ve issued around 860,000 special vehicle permits for oversized and overweight loads. That number coupled with the 103 bridge impacts during the same time period show that freight haulers are generally very good about following the law by ensuring their load can safely travel underneath our structures. Still, the target is zero. We can’t drive the routes for each trucker, but we can provide drivers with good information so they can make good decisions. We sign our overhanging structures more aggressively than the national standard, provide easy to access permitting information and up-to-date restrictions for highways statewide.

Our team was able to quickly reopen the bridge to traffic in 27 days with a temporary span, followed by a permanent replacement in 66 days using a creative design-build method that minimized traffic impacts. This was an impressive achievement carried out by a creative team driven to reconnect our communities along this vital corridor and funded by our partners at the Federal Highway Administration.


Before Thanksgiving, we even raised the overheard clearance to 18 feet across all lanes. We’ve been asked about retrofitting the overhead height of other bridges, but we simply do not have the funding. With the little money we do have, we strategically use it (pdf) for preservation like painting projects that prevent corrosion of our steel structures, or bridge deck rehab projects that can extend the structure’s life 20 to 30 years to keep traffic moving.

There’s still one more chapter to be written for the Skagit River Bridge, and that will be included in the final report from the National Transportation Safety Board. With their information, we could learn what, if anything can be done to better protect our transportation infrastructure for generations to come.

This week people searched to learn more about unfamiliar faces and rising stars—on TV, courtside and even on our homepage.

Winner winner, TV dinner
People gave their “w” and “o” keys a workout this week as they turned to search to ask “who won…” in the season finales of reality show competitions “American Idol,” “The Voice” and “Dancing with the Stars.” After Josh Kaufman won "The Voice," many searched to watch some of Kaufman’s past performances on the show, like [stay with me]. Meanwhile on “Dancing with the Stars,” searches for ice dancer [meryl davis] were almost as high this past week as in February, when she won an Olympic medal in Sochi. Fans of Davis looked to find out if she’s dating her “DWTS” partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy: searches for terms like [meryl davis maksim] and [meryl davis boyfriend] have been trending.

Basketball’s surprise star
NBA fans met a fresh face this week at the NBA Draft Lottery. The designated representative of the Milwaukee Bucks was Mallory Edens, the daughter of the team’s new co-owner. And, even though the Bucks slid to the #2 pick (after having the best odds to land #1), it seems Mallory pretty much won the Lottery anyway. And she wasn’t the only one who became an overnight sensation at the NBA’s annual festival of ping pong balls and sealed envelopes: searchers also looked for information about [anjali ranadive], the daughter of the Sacramento Kings’ owner, who was also at the draft.

In other sporting news, the [preakness 2014] raced to the top of the Google charts last weekend with more than 1 million searches, as Kentucky Derby-winning California Chrome won the second of three races on the way to the coveted Triple Crown. Looking ahead to the Belmont Stakes, fans are searching for [california chrome belmont] and [california chrome odds].

Inventions and discoveries
The subjects of not one but two Google doodles were on people’s minds this week. On Monday, we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Rubik’s Cube with an interactive, 3D doodle. Presumably after killing a few minutes (or hours) of their workdays trying to solve the vexing puzzle, people searched to learn [how to solve the rubik’s cube] as well as [rubik’s cube record]. Then searchers looked for information on [mary anning], the paleontologist who was depicted uncovering a plesiosaur skeleton on our homepage on Wednesday. It’s fitting that Anning’s birthday celebration happened this week, since dinosaurs were already trending, thanks to the discovery of a new [titanosaur] dinosaur thought to be the biggest ever discovered.



Posted by Emily Wood, Google Blog Editor, who searched this week for [rei compression sack] and [smokestack sf]

A patent application by Cisco Technology (a subsidiary of Cisco Systems for patents and trademarks) for classification of traffic for application-aware policies was published.



Inventors are Chandrasekaran Balachander, Nalamalapu Kasi, and Nayak Seema;

Abstract


In one embodiment, a method includes performing stateful application classification on packets received at a controller and

Almost two years ago I covered RayV, a provider of optimized streaming video services turn-key solutions (see "VAS Announcements: RayV Exposes Turn Key Video Streaming to MNOs and ISPs" - here).

Orr Hirschauge (ex. The Marker) reports to the Wall Street Journal that "Yahoo is looking to bolster its Web-video technology with another acquisition. The Internet portal is close to finalizing an

By Kris Olsen

Drivers who use State Route 9 through Marysville or Lake Stevens will see the beginnings of two new projects to improve traffic flow and safety.

At the intersection of SR 9 and 32nd Street S.E., our contractor will install new traffic signals this summer. Farther north at the intersection of SR 9 and 84th Street N.E. (Getchell Road), they will begin work on a new roundabout. The contractor started work Monday, May 19.

The intersection of SR 9 and 84th Street N.E. as it appears now

Traffic volumes are growing on SR 9, which is a vital commuter and freight corridor. As traffic volumes have increased, so have collisions and congestion. A roundabout and signals will help keep traffic moving and reduce the risk of collisions. Collisions and congestion often go hand in hand: four to ten minutes of traffic congestion can result from every minute a lane remains blocked.

The intersection of SR 9 and 84th Street N.E. after the roundabout is built

Here’s a closer look at each location and how the improvement will benefit drivers:

SR 9 and 32nd Street S.E. – traffic signals

• The signals will control traffic in both directions of SR 9 and 32nd Street S.E., and include dedicated right- and left-hand turns lanes on SR 9.
• The signals will be programmed to optimize traffic flow during peak periods.
• Drivers at this intersection often have lengthy waits when trying to enter or exit SR 9.
• Collisions can occur when drivers misjudge the speed of oncoming traffic.  From 2006 to 2010, there were 18 collisions at or near 32nd Street S.E. Of those, three were rear-end collisions and four involved drivers entering SR 9 from 32nd.
• An intersection controlled by a traffic signal can reduce the risk of collision and improve traffic flow, particularly for drivers trying to enter or exit the highway.

SR 9 and 84th Street N.E. - roundabout

• The roundabout will be large enough to accommodate trucks and buses.
• A center truck apron or island allows the back wheels of large vehicles to ride up on it to easily negotiate the roundabout.
• Drivers naturally slow in roundabouts. The few collisions that occur in roundabouts are typically minor and cause few injuries because of the low speeds.
• Roundabouts encourage a continuous flow of traffic. They reduce the risk of collisions by approximately 30 percent and the risk of injury collisions by 75 percent.
  • Between 2007 – 2012, there were 43 reported collisions
    • 63 percent were rear end collisions
    • 16 percent were drivers entering SR 9 from 84th
    • 14 percent involved drivers heading in opposite directions
• You can learn more about how roundabouts improve traffic, reduce congestion and collisions and how to drive through one on WSDOT’s roundabout information website.

What should drivers expect during construction?

Most of the work at both locations will occur weeknights from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Drivers can expect to see traffic reduced to a single lane on SR 9, 32nd and 84th. Flaggers will help direct traffic through the work zone. There will also be some daytime closures of right turn lanes, although turns will still be permitted.

There will be a full weekend closure of 32nd on the west side of the highway. The date for that isn’t scheduled yet, but it’s necessary to rebuild the approach to SR 9 and create a more level “landing” area for cars. That way, when the new signal is operating, drivers on 32nd won’t be waiting on a steep hill for the light to change.

When will the work be complete?

We anticipate the contractor will complete the work in fall 2014. 

Local nonprofit heroes are making a difference in our community, and we want to do more to support them. As part of that mission, we recently launched a Bay Area Impact Challenge with a question: working together, what can we do to make the Bay Area an even better place to live?

Provide training and job opportunities for people with disabilities. Match surplus medical supplies with community clinics. Bring mobile showers and toilets to the homeless. These are just a few of the nearly 1,000 thoughtful and creative proposals we received.

A panel of community advisors—Honorable Aida Alvarez, Secretary Norman Mineta, Chief Teresa Deloach Reed, Reverend Cecil Williams and Barry Zito—joined Googlers to narrow down the pool to the 10 top finalists. Each project was selected for its community impact, ingenuity, scalability and feasibility.

Now we need your help deciding which projects to support. Which one do you think will make the biggest impact in our community? Vote now for the four ideas that inspire you.

Cast your vote by 11:59 p.m. PST on June 2, and join us in celebrating the community spirit that makes the Bay Area a great place to call home.

Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director of Google.org

A new report by Nokia finds that "40% of customers globally planning to switch provider in the next 12 months and while the share of heavy users of advanced services keeps rising globally, currently covering 69% of all customers do not want quantity at the cost of quality. 






 41% of customers globally think an operator must offer excellent network quality, even if it costs more.

For more information about Global Youth Traffic Safety Month, check out the NOYS website, or join the Twitter conversation with #GYTSM14. And of course, all of our teen safety materials can be found at traffic-payout.org.  

In its annual report (for March 31st, 2014) Vodafone explains that for its consumer business - "Our Vodafone Red plans are now available in 20 markets and we had 12 million customers at the year end. These bundled plans provide our customers with unlimited voice and SMS, and generous data allowances.

We continue to enhance the Red proposition through the introduction of additional features,

By Noel Brady

We are continuing down the path to sustainability with our fleet of vehicles and equipment. The fleet recently became a finalist among the 50 most sustainable and efficient government fleets in North America. In fact, our agency was the only state DOT fleet to make the list for the 2014 Leading Fleets.

WSDOT employees charge up a Nissan Leaf at the DC Fast Charge station at Headquarters in Olympia

The awards, sponsored by Ford Motor Company and Property Room, will be presented next month in San Diego. The Leading Fleets program recognizes government fleet operations in North America for leadership, efficiency, long-term planning and overcoming challenges.

We became a finalist for sustainably managing a fleet that runs on a mix of alternative fuels, including electricity, biodiesel and propane. The fleet was evaluated for innovation in reducing fuel consumption and emissions, increasing vehicle efficiency, using sustainable and biodegradable products and recycling. It‘s one of the largest and most diverse to be recognized at the awards.

It’s the latest in a series of honors for our fleet’s transition to alternative fuels, such as electricity and propane. Our agency also recently ranked 12th among the 2014 100 Best Fleets in North America – the agency’s highest ranking on this list in years. The award highlights our commitment to quality fleet services based on specific criteria, including technology and environmental stewardship.

In recent weeks our Fleet Operations became the first state agency in the country to reach an agreement with Nissan to lease its all-electric, plug-in Leaf cars. The ground-breaking lease agreement paves the way for other state agencies to lease the industry-leading Leaf electronic vehicles.

We are leasing five new Leaf EVs for use at offices from Shoreline to Vancouver. According to WSDOT Fleet Administrator Greg Hansen, two have arrived at Northwest Region headquarters in Shoreline, and one new Leaf each is available at Headquarters in Olympia, Olympic Region in Tumwater and Southwest Region in Vancouver. Charging stations are being installed at each location.

Our land and water fleets also passed a million-gallon milestone for biodiesel in 2013. It was the first year our agency purchased more than 1 million gallons of emissions-cutting biodiesel to fuel ferries, trucks and equipment.

A suitcase full of dirty clothes. A sad-looking house plant. And 437 photos and videos on your phone, tablet and camera. This is the typically messy scene after a vacation. And although we can’t do your laundry (thanks but no thanks), or run your errands (well, maybe a few), we’d still like to help. Enter Google+ Stories, which can automatically weave your photos, videos and the places you visited into a beautiful travelogue.

No more sifting through photos for your best shots, racking your brain for the sights you saw, or letting your videos collect virtual dust. We’ll just gift you a story after you get home. This way you can relive your favorite moments, share them with others, and remember why you traveled in the first place.

Stories will be available this week on Android and the web, with iOS coming soon. In the meantime you can browse my story below (click to start), or explore a few others by paraglider Tom de Dorlodot, DJ Steve Aoki and Allrecipes photographer Angela Sackett.

When it’s less about travel, and more about today's events (like a birthday party, or baby’s first steps), Google+ Movies can produce a highlight reel of your photos and videos automatically—including effects, transitions and a soundtrack. Today we’re bringing Movies to Android, iOS and the web, so lots more people will receive these video vignettes.

To get started with Stories and Movies, simply back up your photos and videos to Google+. And that’s it. Auto Awesome will get to work in the background, and you’ll get notified when a story or movie is ready.

In fact: if your photo library is already online, you may already have stories waiting for you. So look for the new app in Google Play, view the full list of improvements on Google+, and enjoy your walks down memory lane.

Posted by +Anil Sabharwal, Director of Product Management

 
Cisco announced it has added "..Cisco WAN Automation Engine(WAE) to its Evolved Services Platform (ESP), marking another key milestone in the company’s network function virtualization (NFV) and software-defined-networking (SDN) strategy. These new capabilities will provide service providers with tools they need to analyze, visualize and control functions across multi-vendor, wide area networks

As a designer, it's always humbling when you encounter a perfect piece of design. Good design attracts our attention with its beauty, doesn’t need a user manual, is universally understood by anyone in the world, and is simple without sacrificing functionality.

In 1974, the world gave us one such piece of perfect design—the Rubik's Cube. Budapest-based educator and inventor Ernő Rubik created the puzzle originally to help his students better understand spatial geometry. Released to the public in the 1980s, it quickly became an international obsession, bigger than hairspray and breakdancing combined. But the Rubik’s Cube is more than just a toy; it’s a puzzle waiting to be solved and a question waiting to be answered. Over the past 40 years, the cube has puzzled, frustrated, and fascinated so many of us, and has helped spark an interest in math and problem solving in millions of kids. That’s part of why so many of us at Google love the cube, and why we're so excited to celebrate its 40th birthday this year.

As everyone knows (right??), there are 519 quintillion permutations for the Rubik’s cube, so May 19 seemed like a fine day to celebrate its 40th anniversary. To kick things off, we’re using some of our favorite web technologies (HTML5 and Three.js among others) to bring the cube to the world in the form of one of our most technically ambitious doodles yet. You can twist and turn it by dragging along its sides, but with full respect to all the speedcubers out there, we’ve included keyboard shortcuts:

Using the same technology that’s behind the doodle, we built Chrome Cube Lab, a series of Chrome Experiments by designers and technologists that reinterpret Rubik’s puzzle with the full power of the web. Create your own music with experiments 808Cube and SynthCube; make a custom, shareable cube of your own photos and GIFs with ImageCube; or send a scrambly message with the Type Cube. You can visit some of these experiments at the Liberty Science Center’s Beyond Rubik’s Cube exhibition, and if you'd like to explore the cube even further, consider borrowing the cube’s source code to build an experiment of your own.

We hope you enjoy getting to know the cube from a few new angles.

Posted by Richard The, Designer and a child of the ‘80s, Creative Lab New York

Sandvine's recent “Global Internet Phenomena Report 1H2014” (based on data from a selection of Sandvine’s 250-plus communications service provider (CSP) customers spanning North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Caribbean and Latin America and Asia-Pacific) finds that:

Just over two years after its launch, Netflix has become the second largest driver of traffic on fixed access networks

Amdocs announced that "TIM Brasil has deployed Amdocs Unified Communications to power its new "blah" service. blah provides an unmatched user experience across all the subscriber's devices centered on a unified address book, merging device and social network contacts. The app saves money for the subscriber and keeps them inside the TIM Brasil brand while they use messaging and communication

A research by Ejder Baştuğ, Mérouane Debbah [pictured] Alcatel-Lucent and Mehdi Bennis, Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland - considers  "the problem of caching in next generation mobile cellular networks where small base stations (SBSs) are able to store their users' content and serve them accordingly. 

The SBSs are stochastically distributed over the plane and

Ixia  introduced its ".. new ATI Processor for the NTO 7300 brings a new level of intelligence to the network packet broker. Distinct Application Fingerprints and a patent pending dynamic identification capability for unknown applications give network managers a complete view of their networks, including application success and failure tracking. By combining rich contextual information such as

Search is often the first place we turn when something unexpected or unusual happens. This week is no exception, as people looked for news on a celebrity smackdown, an interspecies showdown and everything in between.

When the news is news
A newsroom shuffle at the New York Times put the Grey Lady at the top of headlines around the country. Wednesday, it was announced that Jill Abramson, who served as executive editor since 2011 and was the first woman in that position, would be replaced by Dean Baquet (himself a “first”—no African-American has held the job before now). Searchers scrambled to find information on the story behind the story.

The Finals countdown
Basketball continues to be in the search spotlight as the NBA Finals approach. After a crazy, up-and-down, roller-coaster first round, the second round went more according to plan. Now we’re rewarded with matchups of the top two seeds in each conference finals, leading people to do some searching for the Spurs, Thunder, Heat and Pacers. While those teams are preparing for their next opponent, some teams are already making changes to prepare for next year; the Golden State Warriors announced a new coach, Steve Kerr, a former player with five championships under his belt. Searchers looked for information on [steve kerr rings] and [steve kerr bulls] (he won three of those rings in Chicago), as well as [steve kerr knicks]—rumor has it that Kerr turned down an offer to coach that team.

What a wonderful web
Legions of loyal cat people felt vindicated this week when a video of a family’s “hero cat” saving a four-year-old boy from a dog attack went viral. Not only were there hundreds of thousands of searches for [cat saves boy from dog], but the video now has more than 9 million views on YouTube. I personally vouch that it’s worth your time.

In other viral news, Macaulay Culkin was photographed wearing a T-shirt showing my own favorite famous person Ryan Gosling wearing a T-shirt of Macaulay Culkin back in his “Home Alone” days. People rushed to the web to see the photos, as well as create their own recursive images. As the A.V. Club says: great job, Internet!

Bey it ain’t so
An elevator surveillance video released by TMZ and showing Solange Knowles in a physical altercation with brother-in-law Jay-Z inspired a frenzy of speculation and search activity—and you could say it added one more problem to Jay’s list. Monday’s top trending topic—with more than 5 million searches!—was [tmz], and searches for terms like [solange attacks jay], [jay z fight] and [solange fight] were through the roof. Call it a testament to Bey and Jay’s status as celebrity royalty.
Posted by Emily Wood, Google Blog Editor, who searched this week for [what to see in valdez ak] and [cite news wikipedia]

David L. Cohen [pictured], Executive VP and Chief Diversity Officer in Public Policy, Comcast posted to the MSO's blog, in order clarify some "misunderstandings" (see "Comcast Data Cap: Controversial Usage-Based Billing Plan Reportedly Comes To Light At MoffettNathanson Summit" - here).


 "Yesterday, I spoke at the MoffettNathanson Media & Communications Summit in New York City about a range of

A new report by Shira Levine, directing analyst for service enablement and subscriber intelligence, Infonetics Research finds that "..the subscriber data management (SDM) market reached $1.1 billion in 2013 and demand for solutions that enable operators to consolidate and manage subscriber data more efficiently to drive the SDM market to $2.5 billion in 2018 .. the next big thing in subscriber

More than 70 percent of the world’s population doesn’t own a car¹—a surprising fact for anyone who’s sat for what seems like hours on end in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Millions of people rely on public transit to get around. That’s why, since 2007, we’ve worked to include public transit routes and schedules in Google Maps. In fact, buses, trains, trams and subways included in Google Maps travel 200 million kilometers every day—that’s the equivalent of driving every single road in the world three times!²

Today, Google Maps is helping you get around on public transit even more easily with these additions:

• We’ve added every single transit route in Great Britain to Google Maps—making it easier to get anywhere from Land’s End to John O’Groats.
• On the other side of the globe, Vancouverites looking for sun can now get real-time updates on whether a bus to Kits is faster than one to Third Beach.
• In Chicago, Cubs fans can now zip to and from Wrigley Field, armed with the real-time information they need to hop on a bus and avoid congestion on Lake Shore Drive.
• And finally, just in time for the games, we’ve recently added transit information for every host city in Brazil. Can you say “GOOOAAALLLLL?!”

Our transit data spans six continents, 64 countries and more than 15,000 towns and cities worldwide. And we’re not done yet: Google Maps will continue to improve—serving people the information they need to get around town when and where they need it.
Posted by David Tattersall, Product Manager, Public Transit

---

1 This estimate is based on the most recent World Bank data on the number of passenger cars per 1,000 people throughout 100 countries and territories. Passenger cars refer to road motor vehicles, other than two-wheelers, intended for the carriage of passengers and designed to seat no more than nine people (including the driver).
2 CIA World Factbook

Netflix published its ISP index for April (here) showing a significant improvement in Comcast speed. Since the two reached the peering agreement (end of February, here), the service to Comcast subscriber has improved by 83%! (blue line at the chart below).

The service to Verizon subscribers (DSL, Orange line and FIOS, Brown line) has also improved in April (see "In line with the New Net

As a student growing up in France, I was always looking for ways to improve my English, often with a heavy French-to-English dictionary in tow. Since then, technology has opened up a world of new educational opportunities, from simple searches to Google Translate (and our backpacks have gotten a lot lighter). But it can be hard to find time and the means to practice a new language. So when the Web Speech API made it possible to speak to our phones, tablets and computers, I got curious about whether this technology could help people learn a language more easily.

That’s the idea behind Spell Up, a new word game and Chrome Experiment that helps you improve your English using your voice—and a modern browser, of course. It’s like a virtual spelling bee, with a twist.

We worked with game designers and teachers to make Spell Up both fun and educational. The goal of the game is to correctly spell the words you hear and stack them to build the highest word tower you can—letter by letter, word by word. The higher the tower gets, the more difficult the word challenges: You’ll be asked to pronounce words correctly, solve word jumbles and guess mystery words. You can earn bonuses and coins to level up faster.

Spell Up works best in Chrome on your computer and on Android phones and tablets. (It also works on iPhones and iPads, but you’ll need to type rather than talk.) Whether you’re just learning English or you’re already a pro, check it out! And if you’re a teacher, we encourage you to try it out in your classroom.

Posted by Xavier Barrade, Creative Lead and Polyglot, Creative Lab London

According to a new report by Glen Ragoonanan [pictured], Principal Analyst, and Gorkem Yigit, Research Analyst, Analysys Mason "The service delivery platforms (SDP) market generated USD5.2 billion in revenue worldwide during 2013, up 12% from USD4.6 billion in 2012. In 2013, communications service providers (CSPs) spent on service delivery platforms (SDP) solutions to monetise LTE and FTTx

A new report by Marina Lu [pictured], Research Analyst, ABI Research finds that "Worldwide Wi-Fi deployments reached a total of 4.2 million hotspots in 2013, and will continue to grow at a CAGR of 15.0% between 2013 and 2018, to exceed 10.5 million .. The number includes Wi-Fi hotspots deployed by mobile and fixed-line carriers as well as third party operators .. Wi-Fi helps to offload 3G/4G

Tammy Parker reports to FierceWireless that "Sprint's pledge of unlimited data [see "Will New Competition Drive AT&T to Bring Back Unlimited Data?" - here and "Sprint CEO: 'we have no plans go to tiered data pricing'" - here] is looking increasingly less sustainable, as the carrier maneuvers to rein in network traffic generated by its heaviest data users and ensure quality of service for the

TeliaSonera International Carrier (TSIC) announced it launched its "Diameter Roaming Exchange (DRX) service, an innovative roaming solution that enables mobile operators to seamlessly provide subscribers with high-speed, high-quality 4G services outside of their domestic coverage footprint. The DRX service also carries an industry-first managed option that simplifies operations and reduces

A new report by Mark Hoelzel [pictured], Research Analyst, Business Intelligence, finds that:


More and more video traffic is flowing through this new infrastructure [CDN]: The content delivery networks or CDNs will collectively account for nearly three-fifths of consumer Internet traffic in the U.S. in 2014.
 
Pricing is complicated: Pricing for CDNs and for the more specialized transit

Here’s our look back at the stories and searches that made this week, from lightsabers to Lewinsky.

Mint juleps and margaritas
This past week people across the country celebrated several long-held traditions and some newer ones. With the 140th “Run for the Roses” on Saturday, there were more than 2 million searches on the subject of the Kentucky Derby, including research on [kentucky derby time] and [kentucky derby horses]. (We’re partial to derby fashion.) Then, on Sunday, nerds everywhere celebrated what’s come to be known as “Star Wars Day,” thus named because the date lends itself to the pun “May the Fourth be with you.” According to search data at least, the unofficial holiday has been getting bigger every year. And finally, Monday’s Cinco de Mayo inspired lots of pranks, jokes, and more than a few people looking up the history of the holiday.

Red carpet moments and capital celebs
At this week’s Met Gala, the annual fundraising event for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Beyonce and Blake Lively turned heads and inspired searches. And though searchers were interested in the White House Correspondents Dinner, it was old, not new, Beltway gossip that dominated this week. In a “Vanity Fair” essay, Monica Lewinsky broke a 10-year media silence to talk about life since the affair that made her a household name. Search interest in Lewinsky subsequently jumped to the highest point ever since 2004 (the time period for which data is available) as people looked for more information on the original story as well as [lewinsky now].
On the issues
The phrase “Bring Back our Girls” became a rallying cry to raise awareness about a group of nearly 300 school girls abducted in Nigeria in April. A number of leaders, including Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton, have raised their voices in support of the campaign.

On a completely different viral note, Jimmy Kimmel hit the streets asking people “what is gluten?” This now viral YouTube video has left many people laughing at the responses, as well as looking up the definition of gluten, and related issues such as celiac disease, for themselves.

Giving thanks to teachers and moms
We hope you took time to thank a teacher for Teacher Appreciation Week. More than a hundred thousand searches on the topic indicate that people around the country were showing their gratitude. And finally, Mother’s Day is this Sunday, and many people were looking up gifts—from more traditional treats like flower deliveries and chocolate-covered berries, to creative DIY ideas and even poems. For those of you whose moms are teachers as well (like mine), this is an even better time to show them you care.

Posted by Emily Wood, Google Blog Editor, who searched this week for [rolf and daughters nashville] and [how tall is prince]

A new "Policy Management Scorboard" (based on "direct feedback from service providers, market share data, and publicly available financial data") by Shira Levine [pictured], directing analyst for service enablement and subscriber intelligence, Infonetics Research ranks the 8 largest global vendors of policy management solutions: Alcatel-Lucent, Amdocs, Ericsson, Huawei, Openet, Oracle, Juniper,

Finding ways to help keep seniors safe and mobile is among the AAA Foundation's top research and education priorities. That's why we're initiating our largest-ever study of older drivers, in which we'll track several thousand seniors in various parts of the country over the course of many years. Along the way, this study will generate unique databases that will help us answer pressing questions about medical conditions, medication usage, travel habits, and mobility options for older Americans who can no longer drive.

 

tw telecom announced an ".. industry first capability that gives users the ability to control network class of service implementations on demand, in real time, dynamically across its IP VPN and managed services. These industry first capabilities allow customers to prioritize their applications according to rapidly changing business needs and immediately adjust network class of service

Sandvine announced the ".. launch of the Capacity Planning Dashboard. Included as part of Sandvine Network Analytics, the new Capacity Planning Dashboard provides Communications Service Providers (CSPs) with interactive and actionable insight into network resource performance trends on fixed, mobile and converged networks ..  The analysis allows operators to easily identify and manage congested

Austin is home to some of the best barbecue in the country, a killer live music scene, and an energy that can match any other city in the world. It’s no coincidence, then, that it’s also home to some of the most creative entrepreneurs out there, which is why we’re pleased to welcome Capital Factory, an Austin-based incubator and co-working space for startups, to the Google for Entrepreneurs Tech Hub Network. The city’s thriving startup community and deep bench of engineering talent, combined with its natural creativity and eclecticism, make it the perfect place to expand.

Capital Factory is the eighth space to join the Network, a group of partner organizations across the U.S. that does everything from hosting accelerator programs for talented developers to providing desks for entrepreneurs. Google for Entrepreneurs provides funding to all the hubs and give them access to mentorship opportunities and Google products.

In just over six months, the Tech Hub Network is already having a dramatic effect on entrepreneurs around North America. Seventy-one percent of startups say their hub is having a significant impact on their growth, and companies from the Network have raised more than $50 million and created 1,200 jobs since becoming members. Just last month, we hosted a Demo Day for these hubs, where 10 startups raised millions of dollars to help grow their businesses.

To give these entrepreneurs an even greater boost going forward, starting today anyone who works in one of the eight tech hubs or Google’s Campus London and Tel Aviv will be able to work for free from the other member spaces when traveling. This will give startups a home base when they’re on the road, and the chance to spread and exchange ideas from city to city.



Not too long ago, Google was just a small startup in a garage. Now that we’ve grown up a bit, we want to give others a place where they can work on their ideas, and feed off each other’s creativity and ingenuity. Capital Factory is no exception. So, get your boots on, Austin entrepreneurs—we can’t wait to see how your growing startup community plays its part in keeping Austin weird.

Posted by John Lyman, Head of Partnerships, Google for Entrepreneurs