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Google Apps is rapidly gaining momentum in education. We now have more than a million people on campuses worldwide actively using Google's suite of email, calendar and docs to share information and study. This makes perfect sense. Schools have always been a proving ground for innovative ideas. And as we prepare for the new school year, we are happy to welcome more than a dozen universities across the U.S., joining the thousands of other schools that have already embraced cloud computing in education. Here are the new additions:

• Collin County Community College District
• Francis Marion University
• George Washington University
• Indiana University
• Kean University
• Kent State University
• Kishwaukee College
• Loyola Marymount University
• Montgomery County Community College
• New Jersey Institute of Technology
• University of Florida
• University of San Diego
• University of Virginia

This is really just the beginning. As we continue working to make it easier to communicate and collaborate online, we are going to meet with some of the top technology experts -- the students themselves. For the entire month of September, we are heading "App to School" by embarking on a cross-country bus tour to visit campuses, listen to students and learn more about how cloud computing is helping education. Please check out our Enterprise blog for more info.

Posted by Jeff Keltner, Business Development Manager, Google Apps

We set up shop in Ann Arbor, Mich. nearly two years ago. And we’ve been so busy, we’ve barely had time to say hi. But before we tell you about the interesting things we're doing in our new location, we figure you might want to know a little bit more about our state and our town.

Sandwiched between two Great Lakes, peppered with forestry, and teeming with kindhearted Midwesterners, Michigan is the kind of place you'd be lucky to visit and we get to live here. Not only that, but we’re located in Ann Arbor, a town with a great progressive story:

• Popular Science magazine ranked Ann Arbor in the top 25 greenest cities in America.Some 50,000 trees grow along Ann Arbor streets, and city parks boast another 50,000. And while no trees actually grow in the Google office, our cheeks do seem to be turning a nice leafy shade of green — probably from walking and biking to work as part of Ann Arbor’s Commuter Challenge, swapping paper for reusable dishes in our cafeteria, and educating ourselves on composting and recycling.
  
• On Oct. 14, 1960, President John F. Kennedy announced his proposal for the Peace Corps on the front steps of the Michigan Union, in downtown Ann Arbor. Nearly 50 years later, we "A2ooglers" feel a similar sense of urgency — but this time, it’s a desire to work with our very own state, from soup kitchens to river cleanups. We’re also connecting local schools and businesses with Google products.
• In the first Rose Bowl Game in 1902, University of Michigan (located in Ann Arbor) defeated Stanford 49 - 0. Like our Wolverine neighbors, we're burning with competitive spirit — one that’s given birth to office teams for kickball, soccer, volleyball, tennis, basketball, skiing, ultimate Frisbee and trivia.

Forgive us our moment of boosterism, but there's more:

• AARP Magazine recently named Ann Arbor the healthiest hometown in America, based on 20 factors ranging from the community's water purity to the eating habits of its citizens.
• According to Forbes.com, Ann Arbor is America's 4th Smartest City.
• Oprah Winfrey included a brisket sandwich from our own Zingerman's Deli on her Top Sandwiches in America.
• Ann Arbor ranks in the top 21 cities for cyclists, says Bicycling magazine.
• And even more...
  

Inside our walls, you’ll find a team that's committed to our AdWords advertisers — from identifying potential advertisers, to assisting current ones with day-to-day challenges, to strategizing with others for the future. That’s who we are. We’d love to have you join us.

Posted by Eileen Duffy, AdWords Associate

You may have read a couple of weeks back about our 40-language initiative and our broader goal of making the world’s information accessible in as many languages as possible. For this reason we were extremely pleased last week to take part in an event in Rotorua, New Zealand for the launch of the Google homepage and search interface in the Maori language. I want to emphasize “take part in”, because much of the hard work that made this announcement possible came from a dedicated team of volunteer translators across New Zealand.

In conjunction with our active effort to make all of our products and services available in 40 languages, beginning in 2001 we began a program known as Google in Your Language, which is designed to give anyone the tools to translate Google services into languages in which they are fluent. Thanks to this program, as well as our other efforts to localize our products, the Google homepage itself now appears in more than 100 languages.

Around the time the Google in Your Language program began, I reached out to a former colleague at Waikato University, Dr. Te Taka Keegan, with the idea of translating Google into Maori. While working on his doctorate, Te Taka began the translation effort in his spare time. Over the course of the next six years, with the help of several other volunteers, he had covered 68% of the messages. It was at this point in 2007 that the husband-and-wife team of Potaua and Nikolasa Biasiny-Tule caught wind of the effort, and took it upon themselves to complete the project. Thanks to their passion for the Maori language and technical savvy, they were able to recruit the help of the Maori Language Commission and dozens of volunteers, leading ultimately to all translations being completed within a year—just in time for Maori Language Week 2008. By the end of it all, more than 1,600 phrases, totaling more that 8,500 words, had been translated.

Besides being a fantastic volunteer effort, the Google Maori project is a great example of how the Internet encourages user participation, especially in particular cultural and linguistic communities. I'd like to offer a tremendous thank you and congratulations to the Maori translation team in New Zealand, and to all those who helped make this possible.

Posted by Craig Nevill-Manning, Engineering Director

For quite some time we've been talking about the potential of the unused airwaves between broadcast TV channels ("white spaces") to provide affordable, high-speed wireless Internet connectivity nationwide. For this to happen, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) must allow unlicensed use of this spectrum.

If you care about the future of the Internet, now is the time to take action. The FCC has completed its field testing and is expected to make a ruling in the coming months. With this in mind, today we're launching Free The Airwaves, a new effort to bring users together around this important issue.

To help you to learn more about the tremendous promise of these airwaves, people from around the country have filmed video testimonials. Matthew Rantanen of Tribal Digital Village explained how freeing the airwaves would bring new opportunities to the Southern California Native American community, currently underserved by today's broadband providers. Wally Bowen of the Mountain Area Information Network discussed the potential of these airwaves to bring broadband access to rural communities. Many others have also weighed in, and we hope you will too.

At its core, Free The Airwaves is a call to action for everyday users. You don't need to be a telecommunications expert to understand that freeing the "white spaces" has the potential to transform wireless Internet as we know it. When you visit the site, you'll be invited to film a video response explaining what increased Internet access could mean for you, to sign a petition to the FCC, to contact your elected officials, to spread the word, and more.

When it comes to opening these airwaves, we believe the public interest is clear. But we also want to be transparent about our involvement: Google has a clear business interest in expanding access to the web. There's no doubt that if these airwaves are opened up to unlicensed use, more people will be using the Internet. That's certainly good for Google (not to mention many of our industry peers) but we also think that it's good for consumers.

That said, we can't pretend to speak for you. To learn more about what's at stake and to get involved, check out FreeTheAirwaves.com. We hope that once you've explored the facts for yourself, you'll want to make your voice heard.

Posted by Minnie Ingersoll, Product Manager, Alternative Access Team