Posts Tagged ‘Google’

Google Goggles for Android from Google

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Posted 08 Dec 2009 — by Arun
Category Droid

Google Goggles is a visual search app for Android phones released by Google. Instead of typing or talking into the phone, with Google Goggles, you take a picture of an object with your Android phone and Google Goggles will attempt to recognize the object and return relevant search result. Goggles also provides information about businesses nearby by displaying their names directly in the camera preview.

It sounds cool. I downloaded and took a picture of Google Mobile website shown below. The first time, it analyzed and showed me a list of Google sites.  The 2nd time I took the picture, it analyzed and showed me some junk results for mobile sites. I have to try it more outside. It’s cool anyway.

Goggles1

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Gboard – Keyboard for GMail

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Posted 04 Dec 2009 — by Arun
Category Technology

Gboard is a mini keyboard specifically designed for GMail as a replacement for keyboard shortcuts. It contains 19 color coded keys in the size of numeric keypad and each key performs a particular keyboard shortcut. The keyboard can be used with other application as a normal keyboard.

The device is USB powered and required no drive (good for Linux users). You have to make sure that you have enabled keyboard shortcuts in your GMail settings to make it work. The price is also decent ($19.99).

gboard

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Get your community in 3D on Google Earth

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Posted 02 Dec 2009 — by Arun
Category Technology

Google has announced a competition to show your community love by creating a 3D portrait of your community and sharing it with the world through Google Earth. All you have to do is build 3D models of the buildings in your community using Google’s free tools, SketchUp and Building Maker.

Here are some notes regarding the competition.

  • Modeling teams may include up to six members.
  • Buildings can be modeled with SketchUp, a free and relatively easy-to-use 3D modeling program from Google. You use SketchUp in combination with Google Earth to give models a precise geographic location.
  • Buildings can also be modeled with Google Building Maker if your town is located in an area where Building Maker data is available. These models can also be edited and improved with Google SketchUp.
  • Each completed building model should be uploaded to a dedicated town collection on the Google 3D Warehouse.
  • Join our Google Competition Group to discuss ideas and issues with other modelers. It’s also a great way to find people to help you form a team.
  • To enter, each team must complete and submit an online entry form.
  • The competition submission deadline is 11:59 PM PST on March 1, 2010.

According to Google, entries will be judged on the basis of the following general criteria:

  • Accuracy: Your models’ scale, location and orientation must be as true-to-life as possible.
  • Photo-texturing: “Paint” your models with photographs of the actual buildings. Use photo-editing software to create textures that are devoid of trees, cars, people and other visual clutter.
  • Efficiency: Make sure your town loads quickly in Google Earth by keeping your models simple.
  • Detail: Create a sense of place by emphasizing things that make your town unique.
  • Metadata: Include plenty of text information about the buildings you upload.
  • Coverage: While quality is more important than quantity, model as much as you can to provide a compelling 3D experience for online visitors.
  • Elegance: Strive for a combination of beautiful textures, lightweight models and rich metadata.

Prizes

The winning individual/team will receive:

  • USD$10,000 for the town’s public school district (or international equivalent)
  • a visit from a Google team, along with an event in the winners’ honor
  • a video profile of the winning team and their town, to be featured on YouTube
  • a virtual tour of the winning town that will be added to the Google Earth website
  • international publicity in the form of blog posts, tweets and other media
  • additional coverage on Google websites

For more information, Click here.

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Free Wi-Fi in airports this holiday season, courtesy Google

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Posted 10 Nov 2009 — by Arun
Category News

Google announced today that it is working with airports across the country as well as Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and others to provide free Wi-Fi as a holiday gift now through January 15, 2010. The gift currently includes 47 airports, including Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte. Additionally, as a result of this project, Burbank and Seattle airports will begin offering airport-wide free Wi-Fi indefinitely.

According to Google, The upcoming Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s holiday is one of the heaviest travel seasons of the year, and according to FAA estimates, over 100 million people will pass through the participating airports between now and January 15, 2010. Due to bad weather and other extenuating circumstances, travelers often have extra time on their hands in the airport after they pass through security – 70 minutes, on average. Not surprisingly, having an Internet connection during this time can make a difference. A recent study conducted by the Wi-Fi Alliance reported that 50% of business travelers take red-eye flights in order to be “reachable” during business hours, and an overwhelming 82% said that being connected through Wi-Fi would help solve that problem.

As another way to pass on the spirit of the season, once they log on to networks in any of the participating airports, travelers will have the option make a donation to Engineers Without Borders, the One Economy Corporation or the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Google will match the donations made across all the networks up to $250,000, and the airport network that generates the highest amount per passenger by January 1, 2010 will receive $15,000 to donate to the local nonprofit of their choice.

In total, the gift will include 47 airports that together handle over 500 million passengers each year, or about 35% of the total number of annual passengers in the U.S. For full list of airports, click here.

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Google Music

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Posted 29 Oct 2009 — by Arun
Category Technology

Google has rolled out a new music service for U.S. residents. Google discover music lets you search by artists or albums or artists and a song. Searching for music will let you preview the music and purchase the song. Google has partnered with Warner Bros, Universal Music Group, Sony Music, Rhapsody, EMI, Myspace, Pandora, lala and imeem to sell the songs.

This is how it works. You do a Google search for an artists or album or a song, Google will display the song with a preview play button and clicking the link will show you the preview of the song from one of the partner with an option to buy that song. Take a look at the video below for a tour.

googlemusic.JPG

Google Music Search Feature

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Andriod finally comes to Verizon

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Posted 06 Oct 2009 — by Arun
Category News

I read the news this morning that Google and Verizon announced a partnership to leverage Verizon’s 3G network and Android based mobile phones from Verizon that will make use of the speed of the 3G network. The two industry leaders will create, market and distribute products and services, with Verizon Wireless also contributing the breadth of its nationwide distribution channels. Consumers will be able to purchase products resulting from the collaboration in Verizon Wireless retail and online stores.

I was debating whether I should continue with Verizon or move over to AT&T. I was happy with Verizon’s service so far, but their choice of smartphones are poor. AT&T has a good selection of smartphones and the advantage of the rollover minutes, but their service is spotty and poor. I also read the complaints about indifferent speed using iPhones. Now that Verizon and Google announced the partnership, I might as well wait and see what they are going to offer.

News Source: San Fransisco Business Times.
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You are screwed even if it’s not your fault?

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Posted 29 Sep 2009 — by Arun
Category News

A dumb employee from Wyoming based Rocky Mountain bank sent names, addresses, SSNs and loan information of more than 1,300 customers to a Gmail address mistakenly. The bank tried to contact the GMail account owner, but they didn’t get any response. The bank filed a case against Google in U.S District court in California. The judge ordered Google to deactivate that particular email account and Google complied. Google said they can’t restore the account until the court orders to do so.

The user, though it was not his fault, has lost his email account along with his emails. I’m not sure why he didn’t respond. If he didn’t with bad intention, then, good he lost the account. If he didn’t respond because he thought it was one of the many spams that emails users get and didn’t care to open it, then I pity him. I generally get lots of spam with different bank names and I don’t open them normally. This case shows that unless you have backed up your emails (which most people don’t since they trust the service providers), it’s not sure you’ll have it tomorrow. This case clearly shows that you might loose your emails and your email account due to some dumb activity by someone somewhere.

Update: The GMail user never viewed that particular email and Google deleted that email. The judge ordered Google to reactivate the GMail account. The funny thing was, the bank took no action against that dumb worker who created all this mess.

Source: MediaPost, CNet

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Google Sidewiki

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Posted 23 Sep 2009 — by Arun
Category Technology

Google has introduced a new app called Google Sidewiki, which you can install in Firefox or Internet Explorer as part of the Google toolbar. It lets you discuss any webpage out there with others – by adding messages in a side bar displayed on a given page.

If there is no message for a website, the Sidewiki icon will be gray. If someone left a message for a webpage you are visiting, then Sidewiki will turn yellow. The message can be voted for usefulness, can be reported as spam or can be shared. Other than just showing Sidewiki comments, Google also links out to related content found on the web.

Writing a new entry opens up a subject and comment field. Additionally, you can highlight a part of the page you’re on to comment specifically on that part. I haven’t tried this since I have to install the toolbar to access it. Let me know your comments.

sidewiki

Source: Google Blogoscoped.
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Android based work phone

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Posted 20 Aug 2009 — by Arun
Category Technology

Cloud Telecomputers has released an Android based work phone titled Glass Platform. The phone sports a 8″ color touchscreen, click to dial from outlook, Bluetooth connectivity, so  you can answer your cell phone calls through this phone, Voice dialing, Voice notes and HD speakerphone.

According to Cloud Telecomputers, the initial hardware implementation of Glass consists of an 8-inch, 24-bit color display with 800×600 resolution, a touchscreen, a handset and a speakerphone. Telephony is provided using either a VoIP service or through a standard POTS phone line.  Optional telephony can be implemented via a GSM radio or WiMax.

Users can connect phones to their LAN via a 100MB wired Ethernet port or via WiFi.  The phone includes a two-port Ethernet switch so that offices with only one Ethernet port can connect the phone to their LAN, and then their PC to the phone.

Two USB ports are available, including a USB device port for connecting the phone to a computer and a USB host port to which USB devices can be connected.  The USB device port allows the phone to take advantage of standard desktop computer functions such as Outlook synchronization, screen sharing and other PC applications.

The system includes POE (Power over Ethernet) to eliminate the need for an additional wire and power supply.  If POE is not available, a standard power adapter is included.

The phone looks neat, though I’m not sure about it’s performance.

Glass Phone

Source: Betanews.
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Google Chrome browser adds bookmark syncing

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Posted 18 Aug 2009 — by Arun
Category Technology

Google has added bookmark syncing capability to it’s Chrome web browser. This new feature makes it easy to keep the same set of bookmarks on all your machines, and stores them alongside your Google Docs for easy web access.

According to Google, To activate this feature, launch Google Chrome with the –enable-sync command-line flag. Once you set up sync from the Tools menu, Chrome will then upload and store your bookmarks in your Google Account. Anytime you add or change a bookmark, your changes will be sent to the cloud and immediately broadcast to all other computers for which you’ve activated bookmark sync.

Source: The Chromium Blog

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