Don’t know how many folks know, but I got a google glass recently and only now have had some time to start playing with it. There were a few challenges but I finally got Glass ’talking’ to my Windows 8.1 machine and can now replicate the glass display (that is a post for another time, but it did take me some hit and try to figure out what I was doing wrong)....
I came across this very interesting article in the guardian called “ Google logic: why Google does the things it does the way it does ”. This is a fascinating insight and a lot of it makes sense to me. What was also interesting to understand a little more on how the mindset is very different from the other corporates and technology leaders out there. Especially interesting the self-righteous view one perceives that Google has of themselves....
So, what kind of a company do you think Google is? I guess the obvious answer – it is a search company. I would beg to differ and say it is on the contrary a data mining company. They make their money from AdSense and the Click-thru and sure, the search was the initial pull but now it is the data mining which pulls in the $$$’s. In some respects it is a one-trick pony, albeit a pretty good trick....
After legal and environmental issues, finally Google has launched street view for UK ! There are 25 cities covered only at this point; I know both London and Oxford are covered. You can check out the Computing Lab at Oxford (where I study) or Avanade’s offices in London (where I work). {via Mark }
I think this post brings up some interesting aspects of cloud computing and the scenarios within which you should look at to use this. If you are an enterprise then this might be more of a moot point – but the fact is one cannot take things for granted. It is quite timely as I was thinking of syncing up Meenakshi’s calendar from Outlook to Google. Her laptop had crashed and she was without her calendar – interestingly she missed not having access to her calendar more than her emails – but that is another post for another day)....
You must have heard of Chrome by now – the brand spanking new browser from Google. If you think it was the best thing since sliced bread you need to wake up and smell the fish. For me the main deal breaker is the EULA they have for Chrome. As per the EULA anything you use to upload, browse, etc using Chrome you are giving Google the right a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services....
I was signing up for Google apps just to see what the fuss is all about and could not think of a domain and thought to give geek.com a try. Of course I knew it is not available, but I am quite offended by what Google thinks of Geeks - especially the whole damn company was formed and staffed by geeks.
Google Mapplets are “mini applications” you write which can be embedded within Google Maps. Google has a special “preview” version of the maps where you can test this out. To help you write mapplets (e.g. a random weather map ) google also has the Mashup Editor ( reviewed by Lachlan ) which is similar to Yahoo Pipes .
Got time to kill (maybe you have a 4 hour commute like I recently started) and want to tickle that brain of yours? Still reading, then check out Google Papers . Of course some of the papers have been quite publicized such as the failure trends for HDDs. But there are many more interesting ones such as the High-efficiency power supplies for home computers and servers or MapReduce, an abstraction for large-scale computation which essentially is a programming model for generating and processing large data sets with many terabytes of data and thousands of machines....
Google (of all the people) have released Manzana a .NET API for interacting with the iPhone. Below is what they had to say and you can see a screenshot here . I of course don’t have a iPhone to try it out. “Simple and powerful .NET library that lets you read/write files from/to the iPhone, list directory contents and other file and directory related functions.”
I have seen this question being asked a number of times in the forums and thought I’d post about it. What is a Google Sitemap, who better to answer but Google: A Sitemap provides an additional view into your site (just as your home page and HTML site map do). This program does not replace our normal methods of crawling the web. Google still searches and indexes your sites the same way it has done in the past whether or not you use this program....
Google has a new service called Voice Local Search where you call a toll-free number (in the US) 800-GOOG-411 (for those not from America, 411 is the Information line, similar to 911 is the emergency line). You can use this by category or name of the business and other than the cost of your call it is free. It is handy if you don’t have access to a computer and has the same data as that is found on Google Maps....
Google Maps have recently update their data and India is one more country they show street level maps for - check it out .
This is the first for me - google server error while searching. You can click on the image to see the full version. <p> <img src="images/googlesvrerr_thumb.jpg" alt=""/> </p>
CNNMoney has an interesting read on Google and how they operate in Chaos by design . It also lays out the challenges for Google on with a 2nd act - right now it is a one-trick pony (albeit a very good trick one). The author for Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos , works for Google as a Sr. VP of Business Operations. I have not heard of her or this book, but it seems interesting....
Google’s 3D Warehouse is a collection of 3D objects that were created for use with Sketchup and are meant to be used with Google Earth . You can see one of London’s most famous attractions the Big Ben or India’s world famous Taj Mahal . [I’m rocking out to Heartbeats by José González from the album Veneer ]
Thanks to my colleague Rick Pollak for pointing this out. Seems like Google has released Writely.com which is their answer to Word. Registration is open, and you can sign up. I used my Google account and got a confirmation email - however I was able to use the site before I confirmed. <p> <img src="images/writey_IE_crashing1_thumb2.jpg" alt=""/> </p> My first experience was not good - as IE had crashed - well it was running at almost 100% CPU and eating all the resources (click the image to see details)....
Google just released a new version of Google Talk, that adds support to send files between users, allows you to leave a voicemail for the person you were calling and share with others what music you are listening to.
It might not seem like a big deal, and actually if you were not keeping an eye out then quite easy to miss. But now you can save locations with Google Maps. If you are like me and are a heavy user, then this feature has been in the waiting for a while. Check out the link for Saving location on the top right corner when you are in google maps ....
You have have heard of Google Pages by now; if not check it out . I got a test page published just to see how it looks, it seems simple enough and seems to be a good answer to those who cannot afford some of the fancier solutions like Frontpage, etc. Now if only I could publish pages to somewhere else like my own domain.
More news on Google, they have released two new extensions for Firefox, one is called Google Safe Browsing which detects any phishing and spoofing sites, and the other is for Blogger Web Comments - so you can see what others are saying about the page you are on, and even blog directly to your blog (running on blogger of course). [Listening to: I Am - Bon Jovi - Have A Nice Day (03:54)]
You might have heard and seen this already, but GMail has has a few updates, now it supports RSS feeds and you can get it on your mobile/cell phone. Check out details here . [Listening to: I Am - Bon Jovi - Have A Nice Day (03:54)]
Check out how Google managed things a few years ago. Thanks to Eli for the link. :)
While I like the new Google Transit and idea you can use public transport to get from Place A to B including getting very specific like what time to get to a certain place by , currently they have data for only Portland. I think this would have been a much better experiment for a European city like London where public transport exists unlike most US cities!
I guess it was eventually meant to happen, Google has a database coming out soon called Google Base (which will be available at http://base.google.com ), and their intent is if it can be posted online in any fashion then use their database. And all that information will be available through searches and can be integrated with google maps. Seems more revenue for them, and also they seem to be targeting the likey of eBay and Craigslist....