Tag Archives: google

Mathematica, Bing vs Google, Web Hosts

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Mathematica
Mathematica 9 just came out and it has a bunch of new features, such as a suggestions bar which helps you perform various actions after you enter a query, and support for units, like “centimeters and gigabytes”. I think math education should make much greater use of computers, and Mathematica is the most powerful tool to do so. In addition, it has many beginner-friendly features, such as the ones above or the ability to enter input in English if you don’t know the Mathematica syntax for something. Perhaps math education should be based on figuring out how to turn real-world problems into a format Mathemtica can understand.

Mathematica Suggestion Bar

Bing vs. Google 
A while ago Google changed their shopping search from being free like their regular search to paid-only inclusion, like PriceGrabber and Nextag.  Microsoft just launched a campaign against Google, calling them Scroogle. It attacks Google for not stating more prominently that the results are paid, and that they even partially base their sorting by how much much a merchant pays.

I don’t know if it’s such a big deal. Google Shopping used to be filled with all sorts of low-quality sites, and now it’s much easier for them to keep it high-quality. However, they have lost Amazon from their results, which makes a pretty big difference. Also, it would be better for the user to not factor in pay when you initially display an item. They don’t seem to do that though for a general search, and for a more specific one, you can always sort by price, which wasn’t useful when they had low-quality results.

Web Hosts
I made a couple of small changes to the Web Host chart, including adding another free static web host. More of those services should be coming out soon with the announcement of Google Drive support for web publishing. To keep on top of updates and add additional details, I created a Webpage version of my web host guide. This should be the one-page stop for people to find the right web host.

Google, Wireless & Posting Too Quickly

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Yesterday, The Next Web and other tech blogs reported that Google had purchased a Wifi hotspot company for $400 million. I had written previously in SeekingAlpha about how Google might expand into wifi, so I quickly wrote another article on the topic based on the breaking news.  When I finished, I went back to check on updates and it turned out the whole story was false. The tech media wants to get out their story first, so they end up taking a “publish first, ask questions later approach”. I guess I did the same thing by relying on them.

Anyways, most of what I had written is still likely to apply in the future, so I edited my article and re-submitted it to SeekingAlpha. Might be a bit lame, but I think the basic points are true. The Big Cellular Carriers will face increased competition in the future from companies like Google or Dish Networks, and users will have more choice, either through cellular service or even wifi. Click on the article to find out more:

seekingalpha.com/article/1030591-more-wireless-choice-may-affect-the-big-cellular-carriers

 

Google Listens Again

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Google is actually a big reader of the Zappable blog, as evidenced by all the Googlebot visits to my site.~ This helps Google figure out what features to develop for their products.   In the past, Gmail only took one week to implement my suggestions, but this time they took a bit longer. Seven months ago, I posted some Suggestions for Improving Google Products, and Google finally got around to implementing an important one. In June they announced offline Google Docs editing, and they now announced an update to Gmail: A new compose box.  Google’s explanation of the new feature even sounds similar to Zappable’s suggestion:

There are many different tasks people switch between while using email, i.e reading, writing and searching. For example I might be writing an email to someone, and realize I need to do an email search to check a previous email I sent. Gmail should allow people to do these different tasks within one Gmail tab so they do not need to  perform these 3 steps each time: create a new tab, go to Gmail.com, and then go to the task they want. [Zappable]

 

How many times have you been writing an email and had to reference something in another message? Saving a draft, opening the old email, and then reopening your draft wastes valuable minutes. The new compose pops up in a window, just like chats (only larger). This makes it easy to reference any other emails without ever having to close your draft. You can even do a search or keep an eye on new mail as it comes in. [Gmail Blog]

Eric Schmidt on Innovation: Patents, Self-Driving Cars and Education

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Last night I attended the AllThingsD interview with Eric Schmidt. Yesterday’s post focused on smartphones, this post will go through the second half of his discussion.

Patents
While Schmidt wasn’t willing to discuss specific patent fights, he did emphasize one point: The patent fights harm little companies the most since they don’t have the resources to fight patent claims. Small companies have created the most jobs and innovation and so patent disputes can cause great harm by harming them.

This seems true, though patent trolls probably only sue companies that have enough money to be able to pay them. Though perhaps large competitors could sue small companies out of existence, but I don’t know if that is too common. No matter what,he current patent system is pretty ridiculous.

Google and Self-Driving Cars
Swisher felt bothered that Google was involved in everything instead of just focusing on organizing information and called Google a Borg. She also said Google Glass is ugly and wasn’t so in to self-driving cars. Schmidt replied that they want to be in the center of the information revolution. But he said they should be celebrating innovation instead of dissing it.
He said that people shouldn’t really be driving cars and that self-driving cars will save many lives. Car companies will be able to implement components of Google’s technology in a few years, but their will still be a driver behind the wheel and a big red button to turn off automated driving. Also, Google Glass will provide new opportunities and experiences for people.

Clearly Google no longer just focuses on making information accessible  but now does all things software. I don’t see any reason to be bothered by that, as they seem to be doing a good job and provide basically everything or free.
Schmidt seemed to imply that humans will need to be monitoring the driving. People have a hard-enough time staying focused on the road now when they are driving, so I doubt they will be able to when the computer is doing it. Though maybe the computer will be able to pause the YouTube video when there’s an issue that require’s human attention.

Innovation & Education
Schmidt said there’s low morale in the US, which is a demographic problem, a global problem, and an automation problem. He seemed to be saying there was low unemployment because software and globalization are taking over jobs, but he felt that more innovation was the solution. He said the platforms created by Google and their competitors can create many job opportunities in the US.
The solution is also to improve education to help innovation. Currently, the gap between the elite and everyone else has widened, but it needs to be closed. Mossberg asked if he things online MOOCs like Udacity are the future even for the elite. Schmidt replied that these new initiatives are just version 1 and that they glimmer with possibility, i.e. yes. He said there has been very little innovation and real competition in education but these new online offering are changing that.

If technology is part of the problem of low-employment, perhaps increased innovation will just make things worse? However, improving technology has not caused long-term unemployment, since it has always created new markets for people to spend their money on. So the online platforms may provide many more new jobs. This type of work is not for everyone though, and better education won’t necessarily help. However, I don’t think there’s an immediate risk of widespread unemployment.
I think Schmidt hit the nail on the head about the potential of online education. Who more than the head of Google recognizes the power of software to revolutionize industries? He stressed often how competition drives innovation and lowers prices. This is something the government-backed system of education sorely lacks, but there is now potential for change.

The overall theme that emerged from this discussion was the power of innovation. By allowing competition that isn’t restricted by unfair patents or over-reaching unions, great things can be developed that will benefit everyone.

Google’s Chairman about Apple, Android and Smartphones

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Tonight I attended the AllTHingsD event where Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, was interviewed. An abbreviated transcription is available online. Below I paraphrase Shmidt discussing a few topics and add some comments of my own.

Apple and Google Maps
One of the reasons given for Apple abandoning Google Maps was so Apple could get turn-by-turn navigation. Many people assume that Google wasn’t willing to provide that feature for iOS.
However, when asked about this topic, Schmidt said that Google was willing to negotiate, but that Apple decided a long time ago that they wanted to build their own maps. That’s why Apple purchased a couple of map-related companies, so there wasn’t anything Google could do. Yet Apple didn’t realize that it’s really hard to make good maps.

This means that Apple probably went ahead with their own maps app not for the users’ sake but because  because they  wanted to fight Google. While it may be that they can now provide better integration with the overall OS, it still seems like they made a mistake. However, the main complaints people have is faulty data, so that’s not something that the Apple engineers messed up on, but their data provider. That also means it will take a long time to fix. However, I suspect it’s not actually a big deal for most people in the US and that the Apple Maps app works fine navigating to almost any place.

Android vs iPhone
Schmidt said the Android-Apple fight is “the defining fight in the industry today” and the biggest platform fight ever. When asked about the PC-Mac fight, he said there are many more people than PC users, and the smartphone market will be able to tap into that market. He said 6 Billion people use phones, 1 Billion of which use smartphones, which will grow quickly. The phone or tablet is enough for people who aren’t “information workers” who need access to a keyboard. This is a fight which Google feels they are leading. There are 4 times as many Android devices in use than iPhones and 1.3 Millions new Android activations each day. Schmidt stressed that the intense competition is good for the user and mentioned that it will bring down Apple’s profit margins.

While it may be true that people in poorer countries may just get tablets or phone instead of laptops, I don’t see that happening soon in the western world, where people are used to being able to type stuff. Even if it’s just for email, I assume most people like being able to type, though maybe tablets will soon be good enough at that. What’s interesting about the Apple-Google fight is how Apple makes ridiculous margins selling their devices, while Google doesn’t make money directly from Android, and actually earns more in ads from iPhone users. Now that Apple isn’t using Google for maps, one sees why it helps Google to have their own platform, though they probably wouldn’t have lost Apple if they weren’t such a direct competitor.

Hardware Integration, Motorola & Microsoft
Schmidt stressed how smartphones provide an integrated hardware-software experience that “just works”, as opposed to the PC experience that Microsoft developed. He was generally pretty dismissive of Microsoft, feeling that they haven’t been able to make it the new areas of technology. While Mossberg was all excited by the new tablets that Microsoft is creating (hardware and all), Schmidt didn’t think that they would work well. He also felt it was fine just designing the hardware and letting other companies create it, like Google does with their Nexus tablets. When asked about Motorola, he said Google wouldn’t give them any preference, because they don’t want to harm the overall Android system.

While I trust them when they say they’re keeping Motorola separate, it really raises the issue of why they bought them. They could probably get access to patents without buying an entire company, so what benefit do they get by owning one? It would make sense if they could now integrate devices better, but they say they’re not planning on taking advantage of their ownership of Motorola. Also, couldn’t Google make more money by giving preference to Motorola, even if it would cost them a few Samsung devices? Its not like they make so much money from other Android devices, while selling hardware has been very profitable for Apple and Samsung. Though Google is probably just focused on continuous software revenue rather than hardware revenue.

Stay tuned for the next post about Patents, Education and More!

Google Fiber & the Future of the Web

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What is Google’s goal with their new ultra-fast internet? Read my article on SeekingAlpha…

Today Google announced Google Fiber, their new ultra-fast internet. It will start becoming available to residents in Kansas City and provide them with either free regular-speed internet…

seekingalpha.com/article/753861-google-fiber-and-the-future-of-the-internet

Google And The Future Of Search

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What challenges and opportunities does Google face in search? Read my article to find out:

Google And The Future Of Search – Seeking Alpha

[Commercial searchers] could benefit from real a web service that helps them choose the best deal for their needs, as opposed to just looking through a list of links. If another company is able to build a successful service to answer this need, it could harm Google’s revenue, even if people continue to use Google for general searches.

Android and the Difficulties of Open Source

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Betanews discusses the problems with Android being customized by Amazon and others:

betanews.com/2012/04/28/google-has-lost-control-of-android

It seems there are many problems with Android being so open-source, both for Google and the consumer. The fragmentation issue is a  frequent topic on the blogosphere – how Android is being fragmented into too many versions, both from manufacturer customizations and people on older versions of Android. This makes it difficult for developers to create apps that will work well on the various versions of Android. Manufacturers or cell phone companies are able to customize the OS is many different ways, frequently making changes that can be annoying to both the user and Google. For example, Verizon once made a deal with Microsoft to make Bing the default search engine on some phones. And companies such as Amazon can go further and create an entire competing ecosystem. In addition, it seems it makes it easier to sue over Android, since one can point to specific lines of code that infringe copyright or trademarks.

All these issues raise the question – why did Google make all of Android open-source? It’s not like they’re relying much on other programmers to contribute to  the code. While Android was based off Linux and started as an open-source project, couldn’t Google have kept some of the code closed or at least placed certain restrictions on it? I asked this question a while ago on Quora, but I’m not sure if the answers completely resolve the issue. The purpose was to get more people to use Android, and thereby get them to use more Google services, such as search. That makes sense for why they would invest in Android and give it away for free, but did they need to make it fully open-source? Verizon and the phone manufacturers were desperate for something that could compete with the iPhone, so I doubt they would have minded if Android had a couple of restrictions.

Google & Microsoft Cloud-Drives

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In the last post, I mentioned how I didn’t think Chrome OS could compete well with Windows until it came with more offline features. I think laptops in the near future will still come with full offline capabilities, but they will be seamlessly sync’d with the cloud, so one’s files will be backed-up and available from everywhere.

The Big Two have just launched new syncing products. Today, Google announced the long-rumored Google Drive, which will provide everyone with 5GB  free of sync’d desktop-cloud storage. Google Docs and Drive will merge, so people will be able to edit their documents from everywhere.  This beats having to download files from Dropbox to do some quick edits on a different computer.

Yesterday, Microsoft also announced their new version of SkyDrive, which will integrate better with Windows 8. They used to provide 5GB of sync’d storage (through Live Mesh) and 25GB of standard online storage for free, but now they’re changing it all to 7GB of free storage. However, current users can claim their free 25GB from the online SkyDrive if they do so quickly. Microsoft also got rid of the ability to sync multiple folders, to make it easier for SkyDrive to work on various devices. By providing one service, it will make things simpler for people, and they will also allow for online editing of sync’d files, which wasn’t available  before.

This means both Microsoft and Google will be offering very similar services, so one of the big differences will be Office Web Apps vs. Google Docs. It seems unlikely that Dropbox will be able to compete well with them, since they cannot offer online editing capabilities and they charge far more for additional storage. Stay tuned for a comparison of  Google Docs with Microsoft’s offerings…