These artists went beyond Google Sheets to make a mural

Spreadsheets typically equate to boring, menial work. Who wants to talk about data entry? Google has taken some interesting measures to go beyond spreadsheets’ intended use (namely Google Sheets) and has created art instead.

As part of a collaboration with Refinery29, Google asked artists Marina Esmeraldo of Barcelona and Mallory Heyer of New York to “push Sheets to its limits” and go beyond data and number-crunching. The duo quickly realized the best way to make something memorable: using Sheets as a tool to create art using data cells filled in with color to create a larger picture.

The finalized image was a 13′ x 34′ mural which was created by Colossal Media in Brooklyn, turning what began as colorful points of data into an enormous work of art. If you’re in the area and want to see the finished product in real life, head over to Bogart & Thames in Brooklyn to get a look at the wall where the mural is positioned until August 14th. If you’re ever bored and want to create something unique, why not turn to Google Sheets?

Source: Google

Google used DeepMind AI to cut its power bill

Google’s grand experiment in using artificial intelligence to save power is paying off. The search firm’s Demis Hassabis tells Bloomberg that the DeepMind AI has cut electricity use at Google data centers by “several percentage points” thanks to its extra-efficient use of equipment, such as cooling systems and windows. It’s not certain just how much energy the smart code is saving, but Google used slightly over 4.4 gigawatt-hours in 2014 alone — even a small dent in that consumption could easily save hundreds of millions of dollars. That pricey DeepMind acquisition is likely paying for itself.

The company sees more savings ahead, too. The AI now knows where there are gaps in its coverage, and it may tell Google to install more sensors to improve its effectiveness. Software can only do so much to lower the tech giant’s power consumption. However, it’s a relatively small investment that can pay big dividends, and not just for Google’s bottom line — combined with investments in renewable energy, it could do a lot to help the environment.

Source: Bloomberg

Government requests for Google data reached new highs in 2015

Governments around the world sent Google 40,677 requests for user data in the second half of 2015, the highest figure the search company has ever posted in its Transparency Report. That’s also a significant jump from the 35,365 requests Google saw during the first half of last year (January through June). Similarly, user accounts the company was asked to provide data on reached a record high, 81,311, compared to 68,908 in the first part of 2015. Google was one of the first companies to provide a transparency report around government data requests, starting in 2009, and since then it’s spurred others to do the same.

“We’re pleased with some of the improvements we’ve seen in surveillance laws,” Google’s Richard Salgado, Legal Director, Law Enforcement and Information Security, wrote in a blog post. “The European Commission and the United States recently agreed on the Privacy Shield agreement, which includes new undertakings covering procedural protections for surveillance efforts. Earlier this year, President Obama signed the Judicial Redress Act into law, which Google strongly supported.”

While the number of data requests has steadily risen over the years, Google has actually reduced the amount of data it’s given out for those requests. In the second half of 2010, the company provided data for 76 percent of requests, but it’s held steady at around 64 percent since 2012.

Not surprisingly, the United States led the pack in terms of data requests, with 12,523 made during the second half of 2015. Google provided data for 79 percent of those requests, across 27,152 accounts. Germany was in second place with 7,491 requests, and France came in third with 4,174.

Source: Google Transparency Report, Google

Quantum computers show potential to revolutionize chemistry

If you have trouble wrapping your mind around quantum physics, don’t worry — it’s even hard for supercomputers. The solution, according to researchers from Google, Harvard, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and others? Why, use a quantum computer, of course. The team accurately predicted chemical reaction rates using a supercooled quantum circuit, a result that could lead to improved solar cells, batteries, flexible electronics and much more.

Chemical reactions are inherently quantum themselves — the team actually used a quote from Richard Feynman saying “nature isn’t classical, dammit.” The problem is that “molecular systems form highly entangled quantum superposition states, which require many classical computing resources in order to represent sufficiently high precision,” according to the Google Research blog. Computing the lowest energy state for propane, a relatively simple molecule, takes around ten days, for instance. That figure is required in order to get the reaction rate.

That’s where the “Xmon” supercooled qubit quantum computing circuit (shown above) comes in. The device, known as a “variational quantum eigensolver (VQE)” is the quantum equivalent of a classic neural network. The difference is that you train a classical neural circuit (like Google’s DeepMind AI) to model classical data, and train the VQE to model quantum data. “The quantum advantage of VQE is that quantum bits can efficiently represent the molecular wave function, whereas exponentially many classical bits would be required.”

To prove it worked, the team calculated the energy of hydrogen H2 molecules using the qubit computer and compared it to another, classic algorithm and the actual energy. The results (above) line up nearly perfectly, showing the potential power of the method. One big advantage, according to the team, is that the system is robust despite systematic errors, just like a classic neural learning circuit.

While modeling larger chemical systems is nearly impossible on a regular computer, quantum circuits are up to the job. “For instance, with only about a hundred reliable quantum bits, one could model the process by which bacteria produce fertilizer at room temperature,” the researchers say. Since fertilizer production uses up to two percent of the world’s energy, and chemists don’t know exactly how it works, solving it could save billions of dollars. The work could also help with breakthroughs in high temperature superconductivity, among many other scientific conundrums.

Source: Google