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The guy who managed to buy Google.com got a huge reward from Google, but he gave it all to charity

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Last week, we told you that a former Google employee managed to buy the Google.com domain name via Google’s own Domains service. While Sanmay Ved may have only owned the world’s most-visited domain for just a minute or two before the Mountain View company caught on and cancelled the transaction, it appears at least some good came of this story.

Once Google acknowledged the mistake, they rewarded Ved with some unknown sum of cash — but the company decided to double the reward when Ved generously suggested it go to charity instead…
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Google offering $5 million in funding to Bay Area non-profit organizations

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While Google was busy showing off its latest hardware at an event in San Francisco yesterday morning, it also quietly announced something which many will think is far more important. Yesterday, Google revealed that it has chosen its 10 finalists for its second annual Impact Challenge: Bay Area…


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Google launches new donation-matching campaign to raise upwards of $11M for refugees

Google today has announced a new donation-matching campaign that it hopes will help it raise more than $11 million to aid the thousands of refugees currently living in European nations. In a blog post, Google employee Rita Masoud announced the new donation-matching program. Masoud is not a Google executive, but rather wrote the blog post due to her own experience fleeing Kabul with her family when she was seven-years-old.


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OnePlus auctioning OnePlus 2 invites on eBay for charity

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In a blog post this morning, OnePlus announced that it is auctioning off 100 OnePlus 2 invites on eBay with the proceeds going towards the UNICEF Tap Project. Fifty invites have already landed on OnePlus’ official eBay shop with the other fifty due to hit the store a little later.

All invites are for the 64GB Sandstone Black OnePlus 2 and the auctions work just like any regular eBay auction. Winning bidders will be sent the invites by email and once received, will be able to use those to immediately go and buy one the new OnePlus 2 handsets from the manufacturer’s store. All invites will be sent out on August 10th and unlike regular invites, winning bidders will have an entire month to purchase the phone. With the reservation list having already hit the 1 million mark, there will surely be a number of people clamoring to get an invite any way they can.

Part of this move was in order to combat the invites which would unofficially make their way to eBay. In the past, people have been selling their OnePlus invites online and pocketing the pure profit. With this strategy, OnePlus doesn’t just open up a more “official” way to buy invites, it’s also helping out an important cause.

UNICEF’s Tap Project was started to get clean, safe water to children in underprivileged areas and 100% of OnePlus’ eBay auction proceeds will go straight to the charity. If you’d like to, you can read more about the charity here. OnePlus Invite auctions on eBay last 5 days and — at time of writing — there are invites that have raised more than $500.

As promotional moves go, this is a hugely redeeming strategy from a company which has drawn so much negative attention over the past couple of years. Kudos, OnePlus.

Google’s ‘Impact Challenge: Disabilities’ seeks to increase independence of disabled individuals

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Earlier this month Google released two new Chrome extensions—Color Enhancer and Animation Policy—aimed at making it easier for those with disabilities to interact with the web, and today it’s taking its accessibility efforts much further. The company this morning took the wraps off Impact Challenge: Disabilities, a $20 million grant program from Google.org, the charitable arm of Google tasked with supporting nonprofits changing the world for the better through the donation of grants, technology, and the knowledge of Googlers looking to give back.


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Lasting impact: 5 groups that are still doing important things with Google Glass

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The Google Glass Explorer program ended somewhat abruptly in January, and this didn’t come as much surprise to the Glass-bashing media nor those who tried the device for their own consumer use. In these situations, where Glass was a privacy nightmare and an underpowered gadget, the head-mounted wearable display would appear to be a failed piece of consumer technology (and Google’s Astro Teller believes that allowing this mindset to spread was one of the project’s biggest failures).

And it’s true. The first-generation of Google Glass might not really bring much value to the daily lives of most people, and it’s definitely not close to being socially acceptable quite yet. But many companies and organizations that adopted the experimental $1,500 spectacles for specific use cases weren’t so quick to dismiss the device. In fact, there are many groups—even now, after the Explorer program has ended—who are still doing some exciting things with it.


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Google donates $2 million to three charities benefiting San Francisco’s homeless

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The city of San Francisco announced today that Google has made a $2 million donation to three charities benefiting the homeless. The money will go to Larkin Street Youth Services, Hamilton Family Center, and HandUp, according to a report from Mashable.

A full $1 million will go to the Hamilton Family Center, which locates homeless families through the public school system and helps them find a place to live.


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Google donates $185,000 worth of school supplies to teachers in Massachusetts

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Educators in the city of Boston already have an established relationship with Google and today the company has furthered this connection by donating $185,000 worth of school supplies to teachers in Massachusetts. The search giant recently partnered with the DonorsChoose, a non-profit crowdfunding charity organization the lets teachers request materials needed for their classrooms.


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Google donates $100,000 to help children build their own game consoles

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Google has donated $100,000 to a program that allows children to build their own game consoles. A partnership between Technology Will Save Us and Code Club, the program offers do-it-yourself gamer kits that retail for £60 and helps participants develop early skills for a potential career in the tech industry. Now available to order, the funding from Google will provide 900 kits for the cause, along with free sessions with Code Club that will teach the kids how to assemble the system and program games for it.


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Google awards 11-year-old Doodle 4 Google winner with $30,000 college scholarship

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An 11-year-old girl from New York has earned money towards her college education thanks to her creativity. Google’s 2014 Doodle 4 Google contest challenged children in grades K-12 to draw an invention that would make the world a better place. Contest winner, Audrey Zhang created a device that tackles one of the world’s biggest issues, the need for clean drinking water.

“To make the world a better place, I invented a transformative water purifier,” Zhang told Google. ” It takes in dirty and polluted water from rivers, lakes, and even oceans, then massively transforms the water into clean, safe and sanitary water, when humans and animals drink this water, they will live a healthier life.”


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Google releases One Today charity app to all United States users

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Google has just released its One Today charity app to everyone in the Untied States. When the app originally launched a few months ago, it was available invite only. One Today allows users to donate $1 or more a day to a varying list of charities and non-profit organizations. There’s a new charity everyday with detailed information about it and the cause it is fighting for. Users are able to make their donations public via Google+ or keep them private. It also keeps a detailed log of donations, which comes in handy with tax write-offs.

One Today is a mobile app that brings together people and nonprofits through the simple act of giving $1.

One Today will present you with a new project every day from a nonprofit that is changing the world. You can donate to the projects that inspire you with just one click. Amplify your impact by sharing your donations with your friends on social media and matching their contributions to your favorite projects.

You can download the One Today app on the Play Store for free
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