Google Asia Pacific Blog: Malaysia

One man, one kayak, one Street View camera and 2,000 km of Malaysian coastline to document

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Editor’s note: Today’s post comes from Faedzul Rahman, Marine Conservation Manager of the Malaysian Nature Society

A stunning diversity of marine life lives along Malaysia’s coastline. But as our economy grows, our coastal landscapes and jungles are being cleared, suffering vast deterioration. It isn’t easy to see how this coastal degradation is impacting nature, but the damage is immense. Our coral reefs are dying, turtles no longer lay eggs on our shores, and the mangrove forests are shrinking.

Our latest project, Paddle for Nature, is dedicated to helping people see all this. We’re creating a digital record of Peninsular Malaysia’s coastline as it stands today to benchmark how our actions affect the coastline tomorrow. We’ll be taking panoramic images along 2,000 kilometers of this coastline using a kayak specially outfitted with Google’s Street View Trekker. Hari Raju, our lone Malaysian Nature Society kayaker, hits the waters today in Pengkalan Kubor, Kelantan and will paddle onwards around the islands of Perhentian, Tioman and Penang, and all the way to Kuala Perlis before concluding the journey in Langkawi.

Using the Trekker camera system, we’ll gather comprehensive photographs and data about the coastline’s ecologically important sites, which may also be helpful to government agencies, other environmental organizations and interested parties in their efforts to protect Malaysia’s marine life. We are grateful to the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry for their endorsement.

Once the Street View imagery is ready to share, we hope it will help people take stock of what our landscapes look like now, and become more aware of the impact coastal destruction has on our economy and ecology, the livelihood of coastal communities and the variety of wildlife whose habitat is linked to these coastal areas. We also hope that through the Paddle for Nature journey, we here at the Malaysian Nature Society can learn more about what we can do next to help, whether from the many local heroes who are already taking action or through experiencing the open coast ourselves by kayak.

The 2,000 km route around Peninsular Malaysia

Posted by Faedzul Rahman, Marine Conservation Manager, Malaysian Nature Society

Apply now for the South East Asia Google Teacher Academy

Friday, August 15, 2014

The Google Teacher Academy is coming to South East Asia for the first time this October. Open to all primary and secondary school teachers in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, the program is designed to help educators get the most out of new technologies in the classroom. If you like to innovate in your classroom using Google’s tools and more, this is the right program for you. Submissions are open until August 29, so get your applications in now.

The Academy will take place in Manila on October 2 and 3. Over these two days, you’ll get hands-on experience with Google’s free tools, learn about innovative instructional strategies and receive resources to share with colleagues.

Snapshots from previous GTAs around the world, including in New York and Sydney

Teachers like JR Ginex-Orinion say the best thing about GTA is becoming part of a global community of 2,000 educators who share the same passion for using technology in the classroom. He continues to lean on the network for advice and materials to help make it easier to get kids to adopt new, tech-based approaches to education. GTA has showed him how much more room there is for tech in learning, and inspired him to further develop his teaching style, enabling him to evolve professionally.

We look forward to meeting more like-minded teachers at the first South East Asian Academy!

Posted by Aileen Apolo, Education Outreach Program Manager, Google South East Asia

Women explore the wonders of wearable technology

Friday, July 11, 2014

Shoes that help with directions? How about a headband that monitors a user’s heartbeat and plays music to match their mood? These are just some of the neat ideas recently suggested and prototyped by women from Google Business Groups and Google Developer Groups from Colombo in Sri Lanka to Cagayan de Oro in the Philippines.

To coincide with our recent I/O developers’ conference in San Francisco, we held dozens of I/O Extended events across Asia, bringing together hundreds of tech enthusiasts for live streams of I/O, developer demos and hackathons. We challenged women attendees at nine of these events to consider how wearable technology could solve an everyday problem — we called this “Wonderful Wearables”.

Teams had an hour to develop, prototype, and pitch their wearable concepts. Below are some of their ideas:

Colombo, Sri Lanka: Multiple teams presented wearables that improve women’s safety, including a ring that allows users to make contactless payments so they don’t have to take out cash or credit cards in public places, and a bracelet that alerts users’ loved ones of their location and need for help upon trigger.
Cebu, Philippines: Health risks posed by rising levels of air pollution motivated one team to prototype a pendant that can detect pollutants and alert users if they are in a high-risk area. This concept would help concerned mothers identify safer and healthier places to live.
Zamboanga, Philippines: Instead of identifying a problem, one team spotted an opportunity: why not harness the strength of the strong sun in Zamboanga for something useful? Team SolarCap prototyped a hat that not only protects users from the sun’s harsh rays, but also serves as a solar-powered charger for people on the go.

Want to get involved? Women in Vientiane and Kota Kinabalu can take part in sessions this weekend, so sign up now.

Posted by Lindsay Taub, Google Business Group Women Program Lead

World Cup trends: Asia’s far-from-hometown heroes

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

In last week’s installment of World Cup search trends in Asia, Ben Kwon, a US-based follower of this blog, raised a good question: how do countries that aren’t playing in the tournament decide which teams to root for? Despite there being no homegrown teams amongst the semifinalists of Argentina, Brazil, Germany, and the Netherlands, World Cup fever is alive and well in Asia.

So, which of these four teams are most popular in which Asian countries?

We looked at Google searches as a proxy for fandom. It’s no big surprise that host nation and perennial futebol favorite Brazil is extremely popular across the region: from the Philippines to South Korea, the soccer samba-ists are the favorite final four team by far. But you might be surprised to know that Argentina has a legion of supporters in Bangladesh and India’s West Bengal—fans in that region have generally been split into two camps between the Latin American rivals.

The German national team outperforms the Netherlands in searches across the region. Particularly in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Hong Kong — where the black-red-gold jerseys have also all but sold out — the madness for the Mannschaft has spiked around every one of their games. But who knows, searches for the Dutch oranje might just surge if they ride their current underdog status to a victory against the Argentinians.

To our readers: what explains these search trends? Why is the South American rivalry playing out on the subcontinent? And what makes Germany so popular among so many Asian nations? We’re curious to hear your comments below.

Posted by Joyce Hau, Communications Senior Associate, Google Asia Pacific

Ramadan Mubarak!

Monday, June 30, 2014

Muslims everywhere are in a festive mood with the holy month of fasting, or Ramadan, upon us. Asia is home to the majority of the world’s Muslims, and taking a look at Ramadan-related search trends across the region highlights the diversity in how it’s celebrated.

Every year in Indonesia there is debate about when the fasting month begins. This year is no exception with searches for "kapan Ramadhan" (when is Ramadan) and "jadwal Ramadhan" (Ramadan schedule) rising from May onwards. Many people are searching for the official government start date, which may or may not be the same as what is determined by Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, the two largest Muslim organizations in the country. Each has their own method, which means Muslims across Indonesia will begin fasting on different days.

In Malaysia, the top trending query is “pinjaman bazar Ramadan” (loan bazaar Ramadan). Food bazaars are an important part of the Malaysian Ramadan tradition, and many small business owners take time off from their regular businesses and borrow money to set up stalls at Ramadan bazaars which are visited by throngs of people after sundown. This Google Trends graph illustrates just how closely Malaysians correlate bazaars with Ramadan.

The month long celebration is a special time for families to come together, and to explore old and new traditions. YouTube channel Raya Bergaya brings together different artists, contributing over a thousand videos with special Ramadan content including entertainment, cooking, animation, music, and drama. You can learn how to make kuay teow goreng (fried noodles), a popular dish for buka puasa (breaking fast), or listen to Ramadan tunes.

For more tips on how to get organized, get prepared, and get together for this month, visit google.com/ramadan. We’ve created this Ramadan hub to help people get the most out of the holiday with help from Google products like YouTube, Maps, Hangouts, Google+, Keep and Play, so you can save time and enjoy great content that you can share with friends and family. From Malaysia all the way to Morocco, you can enter your location and get content that is most relevant to you, like a popular cooking show on YouTube or the countdown to sunset.

Wishing you a blessed and happy Ramadan!

Posted by Zeffri Yusof, Communications Manager, Google Malaysia

World Cup trends: A cup Ochoa

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

It’s still too early to tell who’s going to walk away with the Golden Boot at this year’s World Cup, but the star of last week’s Google searches was undoubtedly Mexico’s goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa. After making four magnificent saves and holding Brazil to a 0-0 draw, searches for Ochoa shot up by over 1000% globally, with every single country in Asia searching for him. You know the man’s become social media legend when the top related searches for the so-called “Great Wall of Mexico” are “Ochoa memes” and “Ochoa 6 fingers,” in relation to a rumor that he was additionally, and perhaps unfairly, endowed.

Is there a finger missing here?

The first ten days of the World Cup have delivered plenty of thrills and spills, with the buzz about the tournament playing out on Google in surprising ways. One of the biggest stunners so far has been reigning champion Spain’s spectacular fall from grace, as [Spain v Chile] became the top trending football-related search query in Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The other big upset was England’s defeat at the hands of Uruguay, thanks to star striker Luis Suarez’s two goals. Searches for him increased by more than 800% worldwide. Top trending phrases in Singapore were “England out of the World Cup” and “Spain out of the World Cup” — you can practically hear the sighs of disbelief.

Thailand’s favorite and most searched for football star remains Argentine Lionel Messi while Germany’s Thomas Mueller takes the prize in Taiwan. However, it’s not only footballers that are the subject of World Cup searches. People in Taiwan are also searching for “hedgehog” — in reference to a Thai hedgehog that a Chiang Mai zoo says will predict this year’s World Cup winners. Could this prickly critter be the new Paul the Octopus? Stay tuned as we bring you more World Cup search trends from Asia next week.

Posted by Joyce Hau, Communications Senior Associate, Google Asia Pacific

Malaysia’s favorite cartoons coming to households worldwide

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

This post is part of our regular series of interviews with people across Asia-Pacific who’ve caught our eye, using the Internet to create, connect and grow.

Karyabudi Mohd.Aris of Les' Copaque in Kuala Lumpur

How would you describe Les' Copaque in one sentence?
We’re a pioneering Malaysian production company behind some of the most popular 3D animations in the world today, including Upin & Ipin.

For readers outside Asia, Upin & Ipin are twin brothers whose lives and adventures we follow as they and their friends journey through their kampung, or Malay village.

Why did you choose to go online?
We began by producing animated series for TV channels — Disney, Nickelodeon, and stations in fifteen countries including Malaysia. But unlike television, YouTube gives us borderless distribution advantages that no other channel can, as well as the potential to access every household worldwide. With over 1 billion viewers each month, it allows us to reach more people than we could ever imagine.

The ability to watch YouTube content on different screens — from in your hand to your home — means it’s a lot more fan-friendly, which is the first step to going viral. Importantly, YouTube provides us with a platform to engage our audience directly. With the help of YouTube analytics, we are able to better understand our audience’s needs and what they like, which we can cater to when developing new content. We also wanted to benefit from the ad revenue potential that this free platform offers. So really, it was a no-brainer and we would have gone online sooner or later. Sooner is clearly better than later!

The Les’ Copaque team

Where’s the Internet going to take Les' Copaque next?
We recently announced a new production — DaDuDiDo, which will be shown exclusively on YouTube and offers us greater monetization potential. One of our goals is to show the world that Malaysian creators can go global. We also look forward to using the Internet to sell a full line of merchandise.

Who’s your Internet idol and why?
PSY. Overnight, he went from being a singer who was hardly known outside of South Korea, to a global superstar. He’s also the first person in the YouTube era to secure a place in world pop-culture history.

Posted by Karyabudi Mohd.Aris, International Marketing Manager, Les' Copaque

Riding into the Year of the Horse

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Many cultures across Asia Pacific are celebrating the arrival of the Lunar New Year. In the Chinese calendar, 2014 marks the beginning of the Year of the Wooden Horse -- which is the inspiration behind the rocking horse in our special holiday doodle. The boy is holding up firecrackers to ward off evil spirits, while the red paper lanterns symbolize letting go of the old year and welcoming the new.

We wish all of our readers a Gong Xi Fa Cai and a happy time with family and friends!

Yasmin Ahmad: Opening eyes and touching hearts through film

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Today we celebrate the 56th birthday of the acclaimed Malaysian filmmaker and screenplay writer Yasmin Ahmad. Her movies and commercials examined the barriers between cultures, she was not one to shy away from difficult subjects and she touched the hearts of many Malaysians while winning awards from both the ad and film industries.

For this doodle, we were inspired by her 2004 film Sepet, which tells the story of how two young lovers from different racial and religious backgrounds cope with family and social pressure. Here’s the trailer from this much-loved film:

To learn more about Yasmin Ahmad’s work, check out this insightful and humorous TEDx talk that she gave in Kuala Lumpur shortly before her death in 2009:

Posted by Sajith Sivanandan, Country Manager, Malaysia

Asia Pacific Blog

One man, one kayak, one Street View camera and 2,000 km of Malaysian coastline to document

Apply now for the South East Asia Google Teacher Academy

Women explore the wonders of wearable technology

World Cup trends: Asia’s far-from-hometown heroes

Ramadan Mubarak!

World Cup trends: A cup Ochoa

Malaysia’s favorite cartoons coming to households worldwide

Riding into the Year of the Horse

Yasmin Ahmad: Opening eyes and touching hearts through film

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