K-Squared Ramblings » google

Recent Tech Links

Kelson — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:45:30 +0000

Some interesting technology articles I’ve found over the last few weeks.

Cornell lab prints food (LA Times) – One step closer to the day we can order pizza online…and download it!
Nifty idea: Google is designing a designing a “web intents” system for web apps, similar to intents in Android. That way you can have, say, a social network and a photo site that don’t even know about each other, and you can still share your photos directly from the site using that network.
Ping isn’t always the best way to test network connectivity (or even speed) – ISC Diary
XKCD and the paradox of password strength. ISC responds: it’s not that simple.
Consolidation in the Telecommunications Industry since 1984 (the government-imposed breakup of AT&T into the seven “Baby Bells”) – WSJ
ISC asks: Should We Still Test Patches?
Introducing CloudFlare’s Automatic IPv6 Gateway – Very cool use of an existing proxy to make any website reachable by IPv6 with no changes to the server.
Extrasolar planets seen by Hubble in 1998 revealed by new image processing techniques.

What Can You Build With the Google+ API So Far?

Kelson — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 20:47:33 +0000

Google has released the first taste of what will become a larger Google+ API for third-party applications built on their social network. So far, all you can do is authenticate, retrieve someone’s public profile, and read their public activities. That doesn’t sound like much, does it?

Well, here are some ideas I came up with over lunch:

Add Google+ activity to a lifestream.
Allow someone to comment on your blog using their Google+ identity.
Create a map of movements of based on public checkins.
Analyze posting frequency & times.
Analyze most popular posts based on reshares, +1s, replies (basically: add Google+ to Klout [Update: That was fast!])
Associate a person with other profiles you might have from other social networks, based on their profile URLs.
Build a list of people who work at an organization and speak a particular language.

Of course, it’ll really start taking off when they enable write access and the link-sharing and cross-posting services can get in on the act.

So, how about you? What else do you think can be done with the limited API released today?

You can find me at Google+ here: Kelson Vibber.

Google GPS Navigation Needs Traffic Prediction

Kelson — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 16:59:37 +0000

I use navigation on my Android phone to pick out the best route to work each morning. The problem is, it bases time estimates on traffic conditions now — not traffic conditions as they’ll be when I get to each point along the route. I’ve gotten used to the morning drive taking at least 15 minutes* longer and the evening drive taking around 10 minutes less than predicted, but a little more precision would be helpful.

Obviously, Google isn’t psychic. They can’t predict where and when car crashes will happen. But they do have historical traffic data. If you go to Google Maps on the web and display traffic, you can switch between live data and an average for a given time and day of the week.

It would be fantastic if Google used that data to predict how much slower (or faster) traffic will be moving at each point along each projected route, and use that for the time estimates. It would be nice for the “Are we there yet?” factor, but it would be incredibly useful for route planning!

*Sometimes more. This morning, it predicted a 55-minute trip. It took me an hour and 35 minutes.

That’s Not What I Said!

Kelson — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 03:32:24 +0000

Things Google speech recognition came up with when I tried to search for “The Lost Bean” (an independent coffee place in Tustin):

oh clock team
the team
zoloft 18

After three tries I gave up and searched for something else in the same strip mall. Oddly enough, it had no trouble figuring out Nieuport 17.

G1 Will Get Android 2.1 After All

Kelson — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 07:59:41 +0000

Android and Me is reporting that all Android phones in the U.S. will get Android 2.1 updates — even the G1 — but that they may be missing some features and some models will need to be wiped as part of the installation.

That makes sense, because it would allow developers to reassign some of the space set aside for over-the-air updates and use it for a larger system instead — and maybe more space for apps.

The possibility that the G1 was headed for obsolescence before my 2-year contract was up didn’t bother me much at first, but I’ve watched as even Google has released high-profile apps that required Android 2. Sure, I doubt the hardware can handle Google Earth, and Buzz turned out to be a dud, but they’re signs that Android 1.6 isn’t going to cut it for much longer.

If it does require a wipe and re-install, I can deal with that. A lot of the key data is either synced with the cloud or stored on the SD card. With luck, T-Mobile and HTC will build a decent backup and restore into the process and I won’t have to reinstall all my apps, bookmarks, etc.

Update August 2010: This is looking less and less likely as time goes on.

Why Google Buzz Won’t Run on Your Android Phone (Yet)

Kelson — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:20:34 +0000

I’ve been hoping to try out Google Buzz, but it hasn’t hit my Gmail account yet and it won’t run on my phone*…even though it’s a web app. Comments at Android and Me and at Mashable show that I’m not alone.

It turns out that Buzz uses HTML5 features (specifically appcache, database and location) to store local data and to detect your physical location…and those capabilities were added in Android 2.0.

The support thread mentions that they are “working on another version that will make Buzz for mobile accessible on older Android OS versions (and some other smartphones as well).” The browser in Android 1.6 and below supports similar capabilities through Gears, so they may be planning a Gears-based workaround.

This would be a lot less of an issue if it weren’t for the fact that most of the Android phones out there still run 1.6 or even Android 1.5. IIRC only the Droid and Nexus One have officially been updated to 2.0 so far**, so unless you have one of those two models, you’re more likely to get Buzz to run on an iPhone than Android.

Funny, that.

*I’ve got a G1. It can only access Buzz through the updated Maps app, which brought up a bunch of people in nearby office parks posting things like “Testing Buzz” and “WTF is Google Buzz?”

**A few other phones have had updates announced, but I don’t think any have actually shipped yet. I could be wrong.

Links: WordPress Editing, Fandom, Gmail Recovery, Etc.

Kelson — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:30:00 +0000

How to bulk-edit comment settings on WordPress.
Worth remembering: Your fandom is not Fandom.
Do you have what you need to regain access if your Gmail account gets hacked? (via @pobox)
Critical security fix for Adobe Acrobat Reader. Update to 9.3 using Help→Check for Updates.

Nexus One Thoughts

Kelson — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 23:35:08 +0000

So, Google has announced the Nexus One phone. Let’s see how it stacks up against what I want in my next phone:

Mainstream Android (i.e., not overcustomized like Motoblur)? Check.
Faster than what I’ve got (a G1)? Check.
More memory & storage? Check.
Better camera? Check.
Longer battery life? Check.
Less clunky? Check.
Available on my current provider? Check.

Sounds great!

Only one problem: there’s no keyboard. Android’s on-screen keyboard is decent enough, but I’m not quite ready to give up that physical keyboard just yet. (OTOH, I don’t want the Droid. I played with the keyboard a little at Best Buy a couple of weeks ago, and really didn’t like it.)

I’ll have to practice with the virtual keyboard on the G1 some more. If I can get used to it, this might be worth the upgrade.

Browse-o-Smart

Kelson — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 07:30:00 +0000

After a week of playing with Chrome as my main browser, I’m back to Firefox. Chrome’s fast, but sometimes too much like Breathe-o-Smart.

Me: Why won’t you show me the full (relatively long) URL of this link?

Chrome: You won’t want to look at the full URL with Chrome!

Me: But what if I do?

Chrome: Trust me, you won’t. You’ll never need a URL again.

Me: But what if I need to look at it just this once?

Chrome: Well, I suppose you could actually follow the link. Or copy it and paste it into a text editor. If you really must have the URL. Not that you’d want to, of course.

Me: Why should I have to do that just to look at a URL? *headdesk*

First Look Through Google Goggles

Kelson — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 07:57:53 +0000

I tried out Google’s new Goggles app. Basically it lets you use the camera on an Android phone to do an image-based search. The examples include landmarks, book covers, artwork, logos, contact info, and places.

So I played with it for a bit at home tonight. It’s good at picking out book covers and logos, if you’ve got good lighting and a clear image. 50-50 at landmarks, at least when taking pictures of my monitor. In a couple of cases, it actually picked out the exact photo as a match. It’s not so good at objects, even obvious ones like a Coke can. I’ll have to try it out in the real world next.