Google Wave meets Pulp Fiction
Posted by bordalix Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:29:00 GMT
One word: brilliant.
RSS readers may need to click here to see the video.
Google Street View in Portugal
Posted by bordalix Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:00:00 GMT
Google has just launched Street View for the two biggest cities in Portugal, Lisbon and Oporto. And of course, the hunt for images with awkward situations has just began (image taken from Parque Eduardo VII in Lisbon):
Google Wave
Posted by bordalix Thu, 28 May 2009 18:24:00 GMT
Google will launch in a few months a revolutionary new product, named Google Wave. Last time I got so excited about a Google product was on Gmail's launch. But what is Google Wave? Via the Webmonkey blog:
Wave is a web-based application that marries multiple forms of communication and collaboration, including chat, mail and wikis, into a unified interface. Everything inside Wave happens in real time: You can even see a comment being made as the person is typing it, character-by-character
The Webmonkey blog post also has a screenshot of the service - since some lucky souls are already beta testing it - which I proudly stolen:
That's a terrific productivity tool, instantaneous (latency of low milliseconds) and licensed as open source. It becomes now clear why Google isn't interested in Twitter.
WolframAlpha, the answer engine
Posted by bordalix Tue, 12 May 2009 13:45:00 GMT
The new creation from Dr. Stephen Wolfram, named WolframAlpha, is being heralded as possibly the most important technological invention of the the last decade. And why is that? The scientific community is referring it as an "answer engine" or "knowledge engine", rather than a search engine, since it provides users with the ability of typing a question and being given an answer. Note, that's an answer and not a list of websites.
It doesn't simply return documents that (might) contain the answers, like Google does, and it isn't just a giant database of knowledge, like the Wikipedia. Instead, Wolfram Alpha actually computes the answers to a wide range of questions - like questions that have factual answers such as "How many Internet users are in Europe", "What is the weather in Lisbon?" or "What is the 307th digit of Pi?".
The service will opens to the public on May 18. Meanwhile, you can take a peek on this blurry video from Youtube:
Is Google in danger due to WolframAlpha? There's a growing discussion about it in the community, some call it the next Google, others say they complement each other. And since WolframAlpha as (yet) no known business model, I guess we'll have to wait and see...
Googolopoly
Posted by bordalix Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:37:00 GMT
Found this on Adam Howell's blog. It seems like a critic, someone else could argue it's a joke, but reading the board from start to finish gave me some interesting insights. The image was proudly stolen from Adam's blog:
Tip: click the image to see it bigger.
All about Google
Posted by bordalix Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:54:00 GMT
An impressive presentation from faberNovel on Google's strategy, with solid grounds, concise and very well written:
RSS readers should click here to see the presentation.
Gmail voice and video chat
Posted by bordalix Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:49:00 GMT
Google announced today the voice and video chat for Gmail. To make this work, users have to install a small browser plugin. Google will start enabling these new features for all Gmail and Google Apps today, and as is typical for new releases in Gmail, Google will roll this feature out to all users over the "next day or so". Is this the final nail on Skype's coffin?
RSS readers should click here to watch the video.
Chrome, some bad news
Posted by bordalix Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:30:00 GMT
Update: Google's has changed the Terms of Service for Chrome.
Everyone is talking about the new Google's browser, coined Chrome. and the idea of launching a comic book to explain the advantages of Chrome a day before the launch is absolutely brilliant, and surely must be responsible for some of the hype generated along.
Since there is no Mac version available yet, I still haven't try it, but after reading some posts today, I'm glad I haven't:
- Ryan Narraine, a security evangelist at Kaspersky Lab, found out that Chrome has inherited a serious security flaw from the old version of WebKit is based on: by combining a flaw in WebKit with a known Java bug, is possible to an attacker to trick Windows users into launching a Java file in one's computer. Try this demo to see the bug working (don't worry, it's only a proof of concept, the Java application that will be installed in your Windows computer will do no harm);
- The other issue has to do with Chrome Terms of Service, which I believe will be changed in a near future, since point 11.1 states, and I quote, "By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services". In my opinion, this make sense when we are talking of services like YouTube and such, but in this case we are talking about a browser, so, by accepting this term, I would be allowing Google to own any content that I would access through the Chrome browser, which is pretty abusive, don't you think?
In summary, I will wait for the version 1.1 of the browser, and for a change in the Terms of Service before trying it.
Is this the future of search?
Posted by bordalix Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:24:00 GMT
It seems Google is doing some experiments with theirs main product, the web search. Imagine adding Digg's functionalities to Google's web search results and voila, you get what can be seen as the future of web search:
RSS readers should click here to watch the video.
Google App Engine
Posted by bordalix Tue, 08 Apr 2008 08:53:00 GMT
It's out, it's free (at least for now), and it's a serious competitor to Amazon Web Services, with a more turn-key solution:
Google is offering to host your entire web app, not just the storage. It lets you use Google Checkout for commerce and Google Accounts for user accounts.
Via John Gruber.
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