I’ll let the video speak for itself …
The Monster Chess website.
via gizmodo
Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
Insane LEGO Robotic Chess Set
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It’s Finally Here…
After all the hype, it’s official …
Whether it changes everything, I don’t know yet. But most probably I think I’ll get one …
Oh! And one more for the mrs. too.
When the cash comes..
PacMan 30th Anniversary
Today is the 30th anniversary of the famous PacMan game and Google is paying tribute to it.
Just go to google, click on the “Insert Coin” button and relive your childhood!
Fun!
Update: It’s also a very hot rising trend and gaining lots of attention:
Google and China … and now GoDaddy
This is really fascinating: GoDaddy is now the second major US internet company to pull out of China after Google.
To quote them:
“We decided we didn’t want to be agents of China”
– Christine N. Jones, general counsel of the Go Daddy Group
Here is the link to the full story on Washington Post: In response to new rules, GoDaddy to stop registering domain names in China. (Subscription may be required)
If you haven’t been following the whole saga behind this, here is a quick rundown:
Late last year some hackers attempted to hack into Google’s computers. These were sophisticated attacks and the attempt was to access the email accounts of some China activists. Some of Google’s proprietory code was stolen.
It is suspected that the hackers behind this is the China government attempting to crackdown on these activists but there has been no concrete evidence to back up this claim.
After this incident, Google promptly enforced security on all log-ins. Investigations were carried out and the hackers were traced back to hackers in China. Hacking attempts were also carried out on other major US companies such as Intel.
Google threatened to pull out of China and held discussions with China. Not too much came out of it and there were some rumors that Google will pull its search business out of China. The whole basis of this was that Google didn’t agree to China’s policing and censorship of the internet which were against its principles.
Then last week they surprisingly rerouted all traffic to their google.cn domain to google.com.hk. Now China is censoring the site and users are getting marginal service quality from the site.
Here is a recent interview which the New York Times did with Sergey Brin regarding their latest actions with regards to the whole Google and China saga.
Interview: Sergey Brin on Google’s China Move
Another story from the Wall Street Journal: Brin Drove Google to Pull Back in China
Now Google partners in China are cutting ties and moving over to rivals and shares of Baidu, China’s largest search engine, has gone up. Other search engines are also taking up the opportunity to gain market share in China.
It is definitely interesting to watch how this is all going to play out.
Interview: Sergey Brin on Google’s China Move
SlateV’s TV Ad Experiment
This video by SlateV shows they advertised on a major TV network using Google which is an incredible step forward.
Like he says, this won’t bring mass media crumbling down. But it is being democratized unlike never before.
And just more money for an already-rich Google.
via Frank Kern’s Mass Control Site
Link to Google TV Ads
Oopss!!!
Earlier today …
Twitter is Over Capacity
First time I’m getting this. As you can guess … I don’t use Twitter enough!
My Thoughts on Google Buzz
Earlier this week Google released Google Buzz, a tool which “lets you share updates, photos, links, and pretty much anything else you’d like with your Gmail contacts“. There is also integration with other social networking sites like Twitter, Picassa, Flickr and others, so that whatever your activities in those sites can flow straight into your Google Buzz. Then you can of course follow your friends (automatically done) and other people you wish.
This seems remarkably like Facebook’s newsfeed but more than that, much more like FriendFeed than anything I have seen. And it’s all right there in your GMail, right under your inbox! How convenient!
Or so it seems…
Initial Thoughts
One of my first thoughts was “why do I need another social network aggregator like this when I already have FriendFeed?”
By the way, FriendFeed at this point in time also aggregates more social network services than Google Buzz does. But I doubt that will remain the case for very long. Google (or the various sites) will be adding features which will allow you to easily integrate everything together.
But it just seems redundant to me. I already have so many places to “keep up to date” with updates from everyone — Facebook, Google Reader, FriendFeed, Twitter, etc. I really don’t think I need another place to keep up to date with everyone.
At the same time, over the last few days, I do find myself gravitating more to Google Buzz than to my other channels (Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed). I’m really trying to figure out if it is of any use to me and if so, how do I use Buzz.
So far, there is some good things I see, somethings I don’t like and somethings which I think can be improved.
Likes
- Social Network Aggregation in my Mailbox
To some this maybe a curse but I think it is good to have everything in one place. I don’t deny it can be a bit distracting at times but like I mentioned, I find myself gravitating towards Buzz a lot more at the moment compared to my other channels. - Nested Conversations
This is something that can make Twitter frustrating at times — when you want to see what is going on in a particular conversation but you can because it will require you to follow a whole bunch of people you don’t really care to follow. FriendFeed doesn’t seem to help very much not unless it is all happening within FriendFeed.
In Buzz (just like FriendFeed), this problem isn’t really there simply because people comment directly there. You can view comments from a whole bunch of people without following them. I find that I am more likely to view the comments in Buzz than I am over at FriendFeed. - Collapsible Items/Comments and Conversation Muting
This is something that is lacking in other social networking aggregators (and forums!). Definitely very useful in cutting out the noise and allowing you to just focus on what you truly want.
Tip: to mute a conversation, simply click on it and press the ‘M’ key. - Integrates easily with my other social network profiles
Previously I had already listed some of my social networking profiles in my Google profiles page. It is good to see that Buzz already pulls all that in automatically.
Dislikes
- Additional noise
By following high profile individuals, you not only get updates from them but also comments from all the other thousands of people who follow them. But apparently this is what Google wants. As Chris Brogan nicely states in this post on his blog, Why Google Buzz is brilliant and deadly to social media 1.0, now I am forced to filter out the noisemakers and only listen to those who bring value to the table. - Lack of grouping, Organizing of buzzes
Over at FriendFeed, you can categorize who you listen to by putting them into your own private rooms. That way, you can listen to only selected parties at any one time. This is a must-have feature. - Is my privacy protected?
Because I am using this from GMail, I have no assurance that my privacy is protected. There has been updates that I can hide selected data from the public but I still think that a lot more can be put into Buzz.
There has also been a lot of concern such as pointed out here. - Lack of Separation and Demarcation of Contacts and Followings
When I follow someone, that person’s contact is automatically added to my GMail’s contact list. Just because I am following someone doesn’t mean I want this person’s contact in my address book. And what if I unfollow him? Will his contact be automatically removed from my address book? Or will I have to do it myself? - No separation between Gmail and GBuzz.
But apparently, there’s news that this option will be coming soon. - Find People Suggestions Not Very Effective
If you click on the ‘Find People’ link in Buzz and you will be able to view the ‘Suggestions’ recommended by Google. However, for me, I don’t find the list very compelling. I would think that with all the data they have about me and my contacts, they could make some solid suggestions. But that wasn’t the case.
So anyway, I went and started ignoring the suggestions, hoping that Google will capture that information and refresh the list, making a fresh round of suggestions. However that wasn’t the case. When I refreshed the suggestion list, I still got the list of people I chose to ignore. Obviously they need to work on this feature.
Suggestions
- Greater and More Flexible Privacy
While I have some basic privacy features like sending my post to a selected group (created in GMail), I would like to be able to select which groups is able to see what. My thought here is that it should be similar to what is in Facebook and how you can have multiple list and customize your privacy levels for each list. - Contact Categorization
It will be good if I can organize who I follow into groups so I can choose to either see the buzz going on among my family and friends or see the buzz going on in my interest groups. If I want to, I should be able to open multiple windows/tabs for each of these groups in my browser. - Better Suggestion List
As pointed out above, Google can improve how they suggest someone for me to follow. My guess is that this hasn’t been very well implemented and it will get better over time. - Demarcation between my Contacts and People I Follow
I wouldn’t want to jumble up people whom I regularly email and chat with and the people I’m following because I am interested in what they have to say. The whole organization of my address book and my follow list should be separated. If I think someone I’m following or someone who follows me deserves to be in my address book, I should have the option to add that person to my address book on my own. - Buzz tagging, staring and saving
If there is a particular buzz which interest me and I want to follow it more closely, I should be able to tag it, highlight it and save it for future reference. - Sending a buzz to other bookmarking tools
On the same note, if I find a buzz that useful that I want to save it, I should be able to forward it to another service like Evernote or Instapaper. Yes, I can email it, but immediate forwarding by the click of a button to such services would be excellent indeed. - Statistics and Analytics of Buzzes
Knowing how many people read my buzzes, click on a link or forwarded the Buzz to someone else is very good for me if I am a business. I will be use this as an additional marketing channel and then track and monitor my campaigns. - Demographics of Followers
Since Google already have all this data from the Google profiles of the various followers, marketers and businesses will definitely want to get their hands on this data so they can better communicate and engage with their followers. Google can provide this on an anonymous basis. - Business Profiles and Multiple Contributor Posting
As Danny Sullivan points out in this Buzz, The Giant Mess Of Mixing Gmail Addresses With Google Buzz/Profile Names, because all profiles are tied to a GMail address, businesses will have to register an Google account to be able to create a Google profile with a Buzz stream. Business should be able to create a Buzz stream for the business and allow staff to post to that buzz from their own Google accounts.
Google Buzz is still extremely new and the community at large is still figuring this out and what it truly means for social media. Some has said it is a potential game-changer and I agree. What does this mean for businesses and how should we all use this is still something we need to sort out.
What are you thoughts? Leave me your comments.
Google Nexus One – The Story
As you are most probably aware of, Google recently launched their first ever mobile phone product, the Nexus One. They also have a YouTube channel, GoogleNexusOne, and over the course of the last week or so, releasing a series of short films documenting the making of the phone and the idea behind the phone.
When I first heard about the android phone many moons ago, I didn’t think much about it. I mean, it’s just another phone. Big deal! While I like tech, I’m not so much a gadgets person. However, after watching these videos, my opinion of the phone has changed a bit and I would say it is a radically different phone. Is it better? I don’t know. Can’t tell until I can actually try it out. Sadly enough, it’s not available here in Malaysia.
Either ways, here are the videos behind the phone.
Nexus One: The Story – Episode 1: Concept & Design
I thought the noise reduction mechanism is way cool. I’m sure they have this in other phones (I wouldn’t know for sure) but it seems cool.
Nexus One: The Story – Episode 2: Display & 3D Framework
They claim that when you tilt your phone, your photos and videos react in 3D space. While this may sound cool, I don’t know how cool it really is since a photo is a 2D image and there isn’t much you can do with that other than moving the whole photo or video.
Nexus One: The Story – Episode 3: Testing
The portrayal of the tests in this third video seems cool. But the big question is how resistant is the phone’s material to scratches??? They didn’t do a test for that!
Nexus One: The Story – Episode 4: Manufacturing
[Nothing interesting to comment here.]
Nexus One: The Story – Episode 5: Day One
This final video portrays a day in the life of the Nexus One
Overall, definitely a good marketing campaign for the phone on YouTube. I think I would like to get my hands on one and try it out myself too and see if I should get one.
