google search failing lately?

If you care about search you'll find this fascinating.

I've heard a lot of chatter here and there that "social" (Facebook, twitter etc) will replace Google. Until know I've not understood how that might happen.

Google Reader for android: I already read that

When I click "mark all as read" I expect stuff to stay that way. Reader for Android instead remarks the items as new. Only happens on the Engadget feed....

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Microsoft gets it - KIN equals win

KIN is Microsoft's second new phone system this year after Windows Phone 7.

Best described by this short quote:

Windows Phone 7 is the "generic" smartphone platform to target a broad audience, Kin is for a specific subset of super-connected kids.

I think Microsoft gets it. The Facebook, MySpace, Twitter generation. They may be coming in later than Apple and Google, but their new stuff is very compelling. And the target audience is going to eat this stuff up. I bet the data plans will be cheaper too, as in less than the current $30 a month. We'll see when Verizon makes an announcement.


As for KIN itself, you can watch the UI videos on Engadget explaining how it works. If you only watch one, watch the fourth one on photo sharing. All photos are automatically backed up to the cloud - so now you don't have to worry about losing the phone or how much memory is on the phone (well not as much anyway). A great concept - I love it.

I believe KIN, along with Microsoft's Windows Phone 7, will bring Microsoft's phone business back from the brink.

Snapdragon running Flash 10.1 on 3 devices with 3 different OS platforms

The Lenovo Skylight, the HTC HD2, and the Google Nexus One, each using a different OS (custom Linux, Winmobile 6.5, and Android respectively) all running Flash 10.1 on live websites. Very impressive.

Apple may not be in the Flash camp, but flash still runs many many web sites and video content. Flash will continue to do so for many years. I’m glad Snapdragon devices support it.

Bonus - the Skylight has a wireless USB mouse plugged into it. Looks great using standard equipment like that.

Chrome OS anounced as open source

Google took the wraps of Chrome OS today. As Google puts it, 90% of what you do on your computer is already in the web browser. In the video below there is a bit where they explain why your “modern” computer is so slow to start up and get you on the internet. Its the stuff that loads before you can click on and launch the browser:

• BIOS
• OS Primatives
• Hardware Detection
• Load and Start Kernel
• Random Stuff
• Login
• Splash Screen
• Invisible Startup Apps
• Anti Virus Software

It is amusing how those parts of the computer are made to crumble as time goes by. Just like in most computers today.

If successful, Chrome OS looks like a great way to power most computers today. Weeee, everything is in the Cloud. Of course Qualcomm is right there as a technology partner.

What do you think? Do you want to try it? Can you believe they’ll give it away on the Hardware? That the hole thing is open source?

It just blows my mind. Especially when I think about how much I’ve spend on wintel computers and my last purchase.

Chrome OS will be on Snapdragon powered Smartbooks soon - think middle to end of  next year. We have guys working on it right now.

You can get a taste of Chome OS right now on your Windows PC. Download the browser and give it a try. I use it almost exclusively.

Looking at google wave

UPDATE: the link below to the “10 Persistent…” is a slide show. I prefer the text version and the accompanying writeup. I think you will too. Here is a sample:

In your average corporate environment, though, this happens all the time. People work on documents, presentations, etc. They have lengthy discussions over email. Pieces of work bounce back and forth across one or multiple organisations for weeks before they’re finalised. People are brought on to the conversation late in the day. Attachments get lost. Inboxes fill up and emails bounce. It’s a major pain.

So what are the problems with email in a corporate environment, and what does Wave do to address them?

Looking at wave? I am.

Here we have reported 10 Persistent Messaging Problems that Google Wave Solves and 5 Google wave use cases.

I’d like to try this on a project or part of a project. What about you?

Google's Navigation app blows away your GPS NAV system

I had no idea that Google would use street view photos in there NAV software for Android 2.0. I like the dock and the way it automatically enters NAV mode.

But what really blows away other NAV systems is the voice recognition. Sure its staged, but if they get close to what is in the video - I’m at a loss for words. Google did some very amazing thigns with one text box interface in search. Looks like they are doing the same thing for NAV devices. Really unbelievable feature set.

He also searches for an "event" at a museum, not knowing which museum it's at. Because Android does the search in the back end at google.com it finds it. Check out the video.

Amanda's picture out on the web

Periodically I google my name, my user name, my kids names etc to see where they might show up. This time a picture of Amanda from my Flickr account showed up on a website from Japan.

It was right next to one with another young girl putting lipstick on. That photo could be seen very easily as provocative. The rest of the blog had lots of posts about random photos and artsy exhibits from around the world. Some of it explicit.

Of course I was not happy to have my little girl's photo on a web site that:
a. I didn't know about
b. has basically pornography on the same page

I emailed the pages owner. Instead of asking him to take it down, I just asked how it got there. He said:

I'm sorry.
My English uses the translation software, it is not easy to understand.
Is your daughter's photograph this?
http://hugo-sb.way-nifty.com/hugo_sb/2007/06/061407amandasel.html
I found this photograph from Flikcr.
I liked this photograph very much.
And, I copied this photograph onto my blog.
This photograph is very cute and lovely.

It apologizes for my use of your daughter's photograph without permission.
Do you demand to delete this photograph from my blog?
If you demand, I will immediately delete it.

Thank you.

Hugo Strikes Back!

OK, seems harmless enough. Still, yikes. I'm going to have to think about all my online photo sharing and see if I can lock it down a bit more.

Google's picasso has a way for you to put photos on line and send a special link to people That link has a key, and only people with the correct link can see the pictures. That adds a level of security... I'm going to ask Hugo to delete the photo. I'm going to remove it from flickr as well.

What about you, do you keep an eye on your Google personality?

fox vs chrome

Google has launched Chrome today. I downloaded it. I'm using it now. I've opend thirteen tabs in both Firefox and Chrome. I don't use IE so I won't do the same in there. The following image is my task manager:

Firefox is using 2.2 times the memory and one of my two processors is pegged at 100% (shows up as 50% in the task manager).

Wow. That is quite a difference. Here are my tabs from Chrome:

I notice, as I'm typing this, that Chrome does not spell check as I type. Howveer, I'm going to keep using it and see how it goes. Not ready to make it my default browser yet. What about you? Have you tried it?

EDIT: I just noticed that crome is using more memory than I originally thought. There are a lot of processes there. This is in keeping with google's stated architecture of having a seperate process for each tab.