They should be numerically graded.

How else are we to know EXACTLY how nervous we should be?

And I'm not talking about the defunct currency.

http://shameproject.com/profil...

But he does prefer the big money over small.

Sure... You can tell it's the future cause the vaporware now comes as vaporwear.

From TFA:

And videos are just your run of the mill advertisement for imaginary products.
Showing diddly-squat of actual operation or even wearing of the product, while showing instead obviously fake videos of them throwing the "prototype" off screen (which does not even clip on to the hand at this point) and "drone footage" which is too well focused and stabilized to be from a wrist-mountable drone camera, obviously NOT wrist-mountable drones flying around, 3D renderings, and not even a single 360-degree shot to prove it was done with at least a camera hanging off of a drone (or a movable crane).

Oh... It's a part of a contest sponsored by Intel?
With prizes of $50,000 to finalists (10) and a $500,000 grand prize (1)?

Well why didn't you say so? I've got a design for a floating cloud sofa I could have entered.
It's like this only with an "intel inside" logo taped to it.

...that's Godzilla.

Coming back to show the dissatisfaction with mere 6.8 imdb score for the latest iteration of the venerational spectacle.

What kind of a world do you live in when out of 4 distinct tropes you pick one as if it is the only one?

And who mentioned anything about social justice warriors?
I'm not saying that Google is promoting any brand of "social justice". Whatever that may mean, as from my experience so far it means so many different things to so many people.

I'm saying that they are exploiting people's preconceived notions about what constitutes "Doing no evil", for the purposes of self-promotion as a "Do no evil" company.
Which they are, in this case, achieving by exploiting children for their various superficial and preconceived racial/gender/ethnic/economic_status/etc attributes and connotations attached to said attributes.
Instead of awarding them according to the merits of their projects.

Not sex and race.
Exploitation of perceived image which goes with certain sex, race, ethnicity...

Because if you are a "first world" multibillion dollar behemoth, it is good for your image to offset some of the connotations that come with that territory, making you look like a big brotherish soulless corporation.
By presenting yourself as aligned with those on the opposite part of that spectrum.
I.e. The poor, the powerless, the weak... through exploitation of well known tropes.

Weaker sex.
Poor minority.
Multiculturalism.
"Do no evil." Scout's honor.

Here's one for you.
Why is this photo of kids winning a science fair, "better" than both this one and this one?
And I'm not talking about technical details like resolution or a nicer stage someone threw more money on.
I'm talking about kids.

What is it about them that makes them more appealing?
Here's a hint.
It has to do with the image of both the army and corporations in general and while it is a part of the two not-Google-fair images it is utterly obliterated from the Google's photo of kids.

Another hint - it's not the gender or the race of those kids. Some or all of those elements are in all the photos.

What? Like the minority ones mentioned above?

It ain't about boys or girls.
It's about Google picking the kids who will make them appear most "helping" in the photos.
Emphasis on appear. As in advertising.

Except, there is no reported decrease in germination time by 33%.

What they do report is:

In all test groups seeds treated with r.japonicum and r.leguminosarum germinated faster by approx 50% (p<0.001).

and

Based on our extensive experimental results we succeeded in showing statistically that two strains of Rhizobium bacteria can significantly accelerate the rate of crop germination (+40% for r.leguminosarum and 28% for r.japonicum; (p<0.0001).

While showing 13%, 40%, 28% and 23% reduced germination time.
So, not "all test groups".
Three of which are below your 33%. So, it is not a trend, or median, or average. Making that "approx" a weasel word.

How they got that number?
By taking the highest result for r.leguminosarum bacteria and barley (40% reduced germination time) and r.japonicum and oats (28%), adding them up and getting from that the average of 34%.
Does that sound like all test groups?

Or closer something to like saying that fertilizer A used on apples increases crop yield by 40%, and fertilizer B used on oranges increases the crop yield by 28%.
Which makes ALL FRUIT crop increase by 34% by using both fertilizers A and B.
Except it's NOT ALL fruit, NOR is it BOTH fertilizers, but SOME SPECIFIC fruit and SOME SPECIFIC fertilizers and MOST of them significantly LESS than the reported 34%.

That's weasel-wording to hide conflation of results and to get bigger and sexier numbers.
After getting their numbers through cherry picking.
Throw that outlier of r.leguminosarum bacteria and barley out and the average goes down to 21.3% reduction in germination time.
Instead, they threw out to lowest results and then averaged the highest ones.

Which allowed them to take the 26% average reduction of germination time for various combinations of plants and bacteria... ...or 26.5% for average for barley and 25.5% for oats. ...or 20.5% for r.japonicum and 31.5% for r.leguminosarum. ...and misreport it as 34% reduction in germination time for bacteria A and B in ALL cases. Averaging out apples and oranges.

And then present it as much sexier 50% increase in speed across the board.
Which is like treating reduction in some prices somewhere as an increase in all paychecks everywhere.

Also, note that they report their p-value as under 0.001 for ALL cases.
However, their "optimum concentration" result for barley has a significantly higher p-value of 0.0264.
Which they've reported as 0.001 in their graphs by knocking down their n to n=336 and thus reporting it as "1 day less".
While all their other reported cases had n=672.
That's p-hacking. Adjusting the experiment conditions to match the desired result.

So umm...

But thanks for pointing out that they didn't just misreport by accident - they purposefully cheated.

Thanks.

I'm gonna have issues with confirming my identity when crossing borders or identifying myself with my ID cards for whatever other reason.

My head is about two-three sizes bigger on my ID, my driver's license and on my passport, all of which I took out just before I started working on my weight and shape.
Didn't realize how hilarious is the difference until last night. How often do you look at your own photo on your ID, right?

In short...
None of the stuff claimed is true and nobody at Google Science Fair apparently read their project report.
They won for being cute little girls. Possibly for having a puppy in the presentation for extra cuteness.

I initially wanted to correct myself on numbers above, cause it's just the germination that was up to 50% and Google Science Fair summary DOES state that the results showed "crop germination by up to 50%, and increased barley yields by 74%".

And then I checked the video and their results.
Which are both loaded with weasel words, omissions and plain old padding the numbers.

From the project documentation:
https://www.googlesciencefair....

The optimum concentration of r.japonicum for the germination of barley seeds was found to be 2x107CFU/ml (13% reduction; ANOVA p<0.0264).
R.leguminosarum had a positive effect on the germination of Barley and reduced germination time by approximately 40% at 25oc (ANOVA p<0.0001).
For Oats, an optimum concentration of 4x106 CFU/ml of r.japonicum was observed to be most efficient and resulted in a reduction in germination by 22 hours (28% Reduction; ANOVA p<0.0001).
Lower concentrations of r.leguminosarium were most effective on oat germination. A concentration of 16x104 CFU/ml reduced germination times from 86 to 66 hours (23% reduction; Dunnett test p<0.0001).

13%, 40%, 28% and 23% reduction in germination time for various crops. Reported as 50%.

Small Scale Agricultural Tests
 
    R.japonicum was seen to have a positive effect on the length and dry mass of barley crops. (+10.4% length increase:+13% dry mass; p<0.0328), the effect was more notable at higher concentrations.
    It was observed that Oats treated with a higher concentration of r.japonicum (4x106 CFU/ml) produced a greater dry mass (p=0.0248) and longer length (p=0.0043) than water treated seeds.

10.4% increase in length for barley.
13% increase in dry mass for barley and "a greater dry mass" for oats in small scale test.

Only problem is... length increase was noted for n=300 plants.
Dry mass increase for only n=24. Cherry picking? P-hacking?

You won't find those numbers in the text though. Only in the tiny low resolution graphs.

Large Scale Agricultural Tests
 
    Lower concentrations of r.japonicum (3x109 CFU/ml) with peat as a carrier were the most successful treatments (ANOVA p<.0001) and resulted in an average increase in plant dry mass of 0.284g/5 seedlings (74%).
    Spraying the seeds with aqueous culture post planting increased dry mass by a mean of 44% (Dunn p<0.0001)

74% increase (and 44% increase for an alternative method) in dry mass is there BUT...
It's dry mass of the entire plant. Roots and all. And this time, without the numbers on the length of the plants.
And no information on if there is correlation between the length of the plant and its weight.
I.e. Is it barley grain or barley grass?

Cause, as we are not talking about acres but of mass, crop yield of barley is just a fraction of the mass of the plant.
So "an average increase in plant dry mass" IS NOT "increased crop yield by an average of 30% with some results exceeding 70%", as stated in the conclusion.

This is just Google throwing money at anything that will make them look good.
No proof of results necessary. Just make it LOOK good.

Which gives me a very icky feeling of exploitation. Of children, minorities, certain genders...

2011 - three girls, from USA, two of them racial/ethnic minorities.
2012 - a "Caucasian" girl from USA, three boys from Spain (i.e. Latinos AND foreigners so it's a little more diverse and not all USA) and another "Caucasian" boy, from USA.
2013 - ethnic/racial minority boy from Australia, a "half Filipino" Canadian girl and an Asian boy from USA.
2014 - 3 "Caucasian" girls from Ireland, one from Canada, one Asian boy from USA and an ethnic/racial minority boy from India.

In Google America, only girls and Asians can science?
Or is it that "we are the world, we are the children" photos just look better?

Yield is increased up to 50%. As it is stated in the independent link.
NOT 74% as stated by inhabitat, that well known source of unreliable news.

http://googleblog.blogspot.ca/...

http://www.independent.ie/busi...

I've still got about 10 kilos or so that say otherwise. Used to be 20 though.

Then I got picky about HOW MUCH I eat and started eating less of what I like to eat. And what I don't like to eat.
Haven't lost the taste for any of it though.