Google has unveiled Google TV at the I/O conference . It only makes sense for Google to get into the TV advertising game so that they can expand upon their advertising empire.
The basis for the box will be Android with a Chrome browser that has Flash 10.1 built in; you will be able to download apps on your computer and they will sync to your Google TV via the Wi-Fi connection. It appears that you will have to use a keyboard for text input and you will also be able to use your phone as well but to what extent is unclear.
Microsoft Tag is similar to QR Codes, however Microsoft is using HCCB bar codes so instead of storing the data using square pixels it uses triangle shapes and colours. The difference is that Microsoft Tags don’t actually store the information. All it stores is a unique ID which it then sends to Microsoft’s servers. This way, you can include much more information, and more variety of information, then if it was just on the tag itself.
Tag is available in the Android Market on your Android phone by searching for ‘Microsoft Tag’.
Google translate introduces Google Goggles prototype which integrates Google’s machine translation and image recognition technology.
Google Goggles allows users to take a screen shot of a or any text via the phone and you can translate in real time with the help of Google Goggles prototype.
This technology uses the mobile phone camera as the source to take screen shot and which is sent to optical character recognition (OCR) engine, recognizes the image as text and then translates to English with the help Google translate.
Presently, this technology can function just for German & English translations. It is not fully equipped to face all the languages yet.
Google announced Google Buzz. They’re calling it “a new way to share. Google notes that this is not a finished product. They are continuoulsy pushing it to integrate with more and more services. Buzz will also launch as an enterprise product and “will change the way businesses communicate.”
5 key features of Web Buzz:
Auto-following - you automatically follow people you contact frequently
Rich, fast sharing experience – you can share photos that are available via other media sites (such as Flickr)
Public and private sharing - you can post things for the who world to see, or just to specific groups of people
Inbox integration - instead of having email notifications, special Buzz items come into your Inbox and show updates in real-time (using @ replies)
Just the good stuff - Buzz learns from things that you like and hides the things that you don’t
Mobile product experiences
Use Buzz from Google.com – post a Buzz from a geotagged location
Buzz application (iPhone or Android) – See what people around you are saying
Update to Google Mobile Maps – Buzz layer added, allowing you to see nearby Buzzes and lets you post a Buzz along with a picture of where you are.
Google’s poor sales could be the end result of poor advertising with a small budget compared to the iPhone and Droid. The Google Nexus One is also limited to T-Mobile, but does come unlocked, if purchase through Google’s website.
As compared to first month sales of the iPhone (about 600,000) and the Droid (about 525,000), sales of the Nexus One do appear to be moving along rather slowly. A lot of factors probably contribute to the relatively low numbers, key among them the lack of traditional marketing expenditure (as compared to, say, the $100 million ad campaign for the Droid) and Google’s direct-to-consumer sales approach, which, although innovative, is simply not something the typical mobile consumer is used to.
This year not grate for Microsoft Internet Explorer browser. Days after news of the latest security flaw in Internet Explorer, Google is adding fuel to the fire by phasing out support for IE6 for two of its Google Apps products, Docs and Sites (which recently got an aesthetic upgrade).
Google Docs and Sites fully compatible are Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0+, Mozilla Firefox 3.0+, Google Chrome 4.0+ and Safari 3.0+.
Google writes:
“Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. We’re also going to begin phasing out our support, starting with Google Docs and Google Sites. As a result you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products — as well as new Docs and Sites features — won’t work properly in older browsers.”
Google has a little surprise in store for heavy e-mail users (and Mac owners): Google E-mail Uploader for Mac. It’s a free app that can archive your old e-mails from Apple Mail, Eudora and Thunderbird on your Google Apps e-mail account.
It’s a great idea; chances are that in the pre-cloud era, you’ve had tons of e-mail stored somewhere in your desktop e-mail client. Now, you can move everything to the cloud in one easy step.
For Windows user, check out the previously available Google E-mail Uploader for Windows. You can only upload your e-mails to Google Apps e-mail accounts, not your gmail.com or googlemail.com accounts.
Google has been working on adding new and improved features to its offerings to make searching for users’ local area easier, and thus has introduced “Near me now”.
The local search service’s goal is to make it simpler to quickly look up local businesses and information about them. Users can access this new feature by accessing Google.com through an Android or the iPhone on the “Near me now” button once the phone provides your location. According to Daily Tech, the new service was created to address two issues for mobile device search users. “Near me now” will provide information about businesses physically near you and let users gain more information on whatever they are in front of with a “Explore right here” option. By clicking or “tapping” on the latter option, users would be able to read reviews about restaurants that they are about to walk into.
There are catches, however, to how the service works. You must be running an iPhone with OS 3.x or higher and/or an Android device that is 2.0.1 or later. Google’s recently introduced Nexus One Android phone will work with the new features as well. The “Explore right here” option option only works if the handset provides an accurate location to one city block, so the feature is likely only going to be guaranteed to work in large cities.
Google officially announced the Nexus One. Check out the specs:
3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen
Qualcomm QSD 8250 1GHz processor
Android 2.1 Operating System
512MB of Ram
5MP, 2x digital zoom, LED flash camera
Wi-Fi enabled
130 grams weight w/ battery
Complete lineup of specs available here.
The Nexus One is available unlocked for a price of $529. Consumers can also order the phone through T-Mobile for $179 with a two year contract. Verizon Wireless customers will also be able to purchase the phone later this spring. Europeans will also be able to purchase this phone through Vodafone later this spring as well.
More information is available on the Nexus One website
A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.
A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time
