Well, ship they did. What matters is how well they shipped it. YouTube is  a core Google product (and its pretty stupid when they show Orkut on their black bar ahead of YouTube !). Youtube’s integration on G+ was sure coming. The way this integration works now is : there is a youtube slider button at the top in Plus and you hover and it asks you ‘What would you like to play ?’. You say ‘The man who sold the world‘ and out pops a window, which is a cut out version of plus itself meant to play youtube. You have a playlist populated and it starts playing your song. There is +1 and Share on the video being played. When you share, your playlist is also shared, which your friends can start playing from the feed. Cool ? Not totally.

So, what is not cool, you ask. Here it what :

• What is with the pop up ? The very experience is soured. Now how different is managing this popup window vs I go and open a new tab for YouTube. You can navigate the playlist from the slider. Would have worked okay had it been an audio playlist, but its a video playlist we are trying to watch. What Google should have done is perhaps extend the YouTube slider itself to play the video extending till the right end of the Stream. Or maybe something else, something better. But pop-up, no. NO POP-UP !

• The playlist -- The playlist is generated by Google for your string and cannot be changed.  When we hit ‘share’ on the video, the playlist also gets shared with our circle. While this works okay if your string was an Artist, it is weird when one enters something like ‘The man who sold the World’ and comes 10 different versions of the same song as the playlist. What purpose is sharing this playlist ? The playlist should have been customizable all along. Initial set of choices should have come and users should have clicked one or more of them to form their playlist -- the way it normally works.

• Does enqueuing work ? When one of the songs was playing and I hit another song in the search bar that reads ‘What would you like to play next ?’, my first song just stopped and it started playing the newly entered one. I should point here : I was working on a slow internet and the first song was buffering when I hit the new song. But whatever. Either way that is not how I expected it to play !

• And again I say -- pop-up ? Seriously ?

Google, along with Samsung, launched ICS with its flagship device Galaxy Nexus in Hong Kong, couple of days back. The device boats of a sleek, trendy body, a 4.65″ AMOLED display, 1.2GHz Dual Core processor from Texas Instruments with some great hardware features -- a 5 Meg pix zero shutter delay camera, HSPA+/LTE capability and NFC technology among other things. But it was the OS itself that undoubtedly stole the show.

Here’s the launch event video. Its an hour long, so in case you have time. To explain the new OS, Google’s Mobile chief Andy Rubin took stage initially and was later carried on by Android UX Lead Matias Duarte. Matias passionately went on to explain how users liked Android all this while but didnot quite connect with it on an emotional level, and that was the sole philosophy that drove the development of ICS. He explains all this in an in-length interview with Thisismynext.

Google have put up a beautifully designed page for Galaxy Nexus here. The page itself has a wonderful UI doing full justice to the newly launched OS. Lets go ahead with some of the features of Ice Cream Sandwich in detail now :

ROBOTO : is the new typeface of Ice Cream Sandwich. The lock screen, notifications, widgets, multitasking has been rethought to bring in aesthetic beauty.

Software Buttons : There are no hardware buttons on the device. There are three software buttons -- back, home, recent apps and they conveniently disappear when say you are watching a video.

Flexible Widgets/Folders : Widgets in ICS are resizable meaning you can customize your gmail app to show say 3 messages. Drag/drop one app over other creates folders, which can be conveniently arranged. Users can create a Favorites tray of their apps/contacts etc.

Screenshots/Notifications : This was much needed. Power button+volume down does the trick. Notifications have become kind of perfect. Music controls have been integrated. You can now swipe out a notification to see it no more.

Face Unlock : A personalized photo unlock by facial recognition has been introduced, which binds you all the more with your fone. This technology is from a Pittsburg based company that Google bought -- PittPatt.

Improved Text-to-Talk : Speech to text engine is remarkably fast and accurate, with very little lag.

New Browser : The browser, much like Amazon’s Silk uses rendering from the cloud, making the experience naturally fast. This also gives users the option of switching to the full version of a webpage and not just be content with the Mobile optimized version. Multitasking comes into play full swing with a nice vertical view of the tabs opened (max 16). just swipe a tab and its closed. Also one can download the web page and view offline.

Android Beam : Galaxy Nexus is NFC (Near Field Communication) enabled. Its almost magical when yo have a youtube video playing on one fone and you tap it with the other one and it starts playing the video from the same point.

Data Usage : Data usage on smartphones has been increasing all the time and ICS brings a nice feature to keep track of your data usage, even to set an upper limit.

In designing Ice Cream Sandwich, Google kept in view two core points -- simplicity and multitasking (in which Android is notches above everyone else) , both of which provide a rich User Experience . Now sit back and enjoy these snapshots of Ice Cream Sandwich.

I can be reached at vikashbitmesra@gmail.com. My Twitter feed here.

First Nuance. Nuance is a company best known for their voice recognition solutions among other things. They are focused on empowering voice recognition not only on electronic devices but also in another broad market -- automobiles. Nuance is a key player in this field, ahead of their competitor Vlingo. Perhaps the only major player in voice recognition on smartphones is Google themselves. And guess who helped Google build it for them -- Mike Cohen, another Nuance co-founder. Nuance has IP on a technology that can make the usage of a smartphone all the more swift and intuitive. Voice commands on mobile devices (assuming its executed right and without much hassle on part of the user) would greatly enhance the experience. Nuance has been in spotlight for sometime now, but the launch of iPhone 4S has brought focus on them all the more. We will get to it in a while, when we come to Siri.

Swype is another great technology in Mobile. Swype, a Seattle based startup that first introduced on a Techcrunch event TC50 , is a software for Mobile devices that lets people enter text at a far greater speed (and more intuitively) than normal ways. Here is a video that shows Swype (on Android) vs normal typing (on an iPhone).

Interestingly enough, Nuance bought Swype in a 100+ million deal. Now, this was a very strategic deal for Nuance. What Nuance achieve through this deal, is, it makes Nuance a single unified mode of input -- voice and touch on smartphones. Swype is already big on Android and Nuance will try to tap the other big fish that is iPhone. And that shouldn’t be too difficult, considering the ties between Nuance and Siri.

Which brings us to Siri, the new personal Assitant on iPhone 4S, as they like to call it. iPhone 4S launched with a few snazzy specs -- dual core A5 chip, an 8 Megapix camera with iOS 5 empowering the product. But what seems to catch the average user attention (besides the improved Camera) is Siri. Siri is your personal assistant that is an answer engine to your ‘not-so-sophisticated’ queries. You fire questions at Siri and it (or should we say she ?) finds those answers for you.

Apple had bought this company Siri in 2010, which provides voice search. Siri existed as a standalone app in the App store. Well, until the iOS 4 product announcement when they introduced it as a core feature of the product itself. And all through Siri’s lifespan, its been powered by the technology from Nuance. Interestingly enough, ask that question to Siri : ‘Siri, do you use Nuance Technology?’. And comes the reply : ‘I’m sorry, I cant answer that.’ Now, why wouldn’t Apple admit that Siri on iPhone uses the Nuance Technology. Well, simply because Apple are wired that way. They are a closed secretive unit who like to keep their secrets close to their chest. And it probably works for them. Nevertheless, Siri uses Nuance, period. Apple realize that they cant take on Google in Mobile Search, so instead they are trying to modify the dynamics of search itself. Smart. Sure. But this game has just begun. Siri, while appreciable, is far from being perfect. It does a few things well (yes, it takes its time, but understandable), but leaves the user wanting when say he orders it to send a tweet or something more subtle.

Apple have designed Siri in a way that the reliance on Google Search is minimal. Siri will try and find out answers to your question from a host of other services -- Yelp (for places), Wolfram Alpha (for mathematical queries) and so on. Default amounts to Google Search (well you can love it, hate it -- you simply cant ignore it!).  That is all okay, but what is not okay is that Apple donot own the core of this technology and being wired the way they are, it must bother them. Had it been practically viable and worth to develop this technology on their own, they would have. But the way Nuance are protective of their IP, that wasn’t an option. Now the heat in on Google to one up the ante on its Google voice Actions.

Another question that pops up is why Swype is not yet on iPhone ? One reason can possibly have to do with its popularity on its rival platform - Android. Some users would opine that they need Swype on their iPhone (well, jailbreaking is always an option), as much as Siri, if not more. But perhaps Apple’s strict control over the interface design and their unwillingness to provide options is at the core of it. Anyway, the ‘smart interaction’ game is ON on smartphones. Once again. Between Google and Apple. May the best man win !

User opinions are solicited in the comments. You can reach me at vikashbitmesra@gmail.com. My Twitter feed : _Vikash

So, that was the good news. In some not so good news, Microsoft pulled in another major Android OEM, Samsung, to pay a licensing fee for the usage of Android. Samsung became the 6th victim to MS, the new patent troll in the Mobile market. MS had previously, on pretext of its patent portfolio forced 5 others (Velocity Micro, General Dynamics Itronix, Wistron, Acer, ViewSonic) to enter into a licensing agreement for the usage of Android, which supposedly violets some of the patents that Microsoft holds.

This was a sad event for technology in general and Android ecosystem in particular. Samsung is the second largest manufacturer of the Android smartphones. And if MS could convince Samsung into entering in a  cross-patenting deal, other smaller OEMs are bound to feel threatened. In fact the only major Android OEM that hasn’t signed up with MS yet, is Motorola Mobility and the reasons are pretty obvious why Moto Mobility would decide to take the legal course. A report states MS would make 5X the money from Android licensing fee than what it makes from its offbeat WP7 Mobile platform. So, as far as MS goes, its pure evil business for them.

But what does this deal mean from the point of view of Samsung, Google and/or Android ? The general perception surrounding this deal would be that Samsung buckled under MS pressure/threat. Samsung wasnt very sure that Google could protect the Android ecosystem and the Google Motorola deal wouldn’t have helped their confidence either. But somehow I get the feeling, there is more to this than meets the eye. Samsung is fighting multiple legal lawsuits against Apple all over the world. And the litigation by Apple against them are no less serious than MS had against them(Android). Why is it then, that, Samsung decided to go head on with Apple and buckle down so meekly before MS ? Samsung, to me, seems one of those ambitious companies who believe they can create an ecosystem of their own in the Mobile landscape. They are pursuing with their own Bada Platform. There are reports of a Samsung-Intel partnership for a supposedly new platform -- Tizen. And now post the deal with MS, they will be rolling out WP7 phones too. So clearly Samsung donot want to be limited to the Android option alone in the short term, and want to be able to develop an ecosystem of their own in the long term.

Nothing wrong with Samsung’s goals. People will say Samsung did what they did because Google wasnt reassuring enough in its stance to protect Android. That maynot be true. Samsung’s actions are more likely driven by their own plans. As for Google, Android is as top a priority for them as conventional search itself is and there should be no reason to doubt that commitment. Moto Mobility deal was 50% about patents, if not more. How the future unfolds for Android will depend to a great deal on how well are Motorola able to defend the MS threat. For Google/Moto, signing up a deal with MS is beyond comprehension. Google needs to win the legal suit against Moto Mobility. Google, in retrospect must have mourned those moments when they decided to take a few decisions/shortcuts that has led to this day. But meanwhile, as someone who owns an Android smartphone, I sincerely wish Google are considering the rough alternative of modifying Android to avoid the patent clashes once and for all. This might not look the best of idea in the short run, but would perhaps serve the long course better, not to mention the original promise and pride of distributing Android as a free Mobile Platform once again.

User opinions are solicited in the comments. I can be reached at vikashbitmesra@gmail.com. My twiter feed -- _Vikash.

Update: Michael Arrington will be blogging at http://uncrunched.com.

There is a lot of speculation about the upcoming blog of Mike Arrington. We should  see him blog again within a week. So what will be the name of his blog? After being call the unpaid blogger  by Arianna Huffington, Mike has been seen sporting a t-shirt which says “Unpaid Blogger”.

After seeing him sport this t-shirt, I thought that unpaidblogger.com should be nice domain name too. So, we looked it up to find that it has been recently bought (9th September to be precise)

I am just speculating that Mike has bought this domain name for blogging and it might or might not be true. All I want though, is to read Mike’s thoughts again. I wish him all the very best.  He remains my favorite technology blogger, by far. Keep  refreshing the url and you might find a blog soon. I saw a nice error page once but forgot to take the screenshot.

Get in touch with the writer at mitra[dot]arkid[at]gmail[dot]com

]]> http://microreviews.org/has-mike-arrington-bought-unpaidblogger-com-speculation-and-proof/feed/ 1 http://microreviews.org/the-facebook-age/ http://microreviews.org/the-facebook-age/#comments Fri, 23 Sep 2011 03:36:25 +0000 admin http://microreviews.org/?p=5227 Continue reading →]]> I just got the new facebook and wanted to share some of the screenshots:

First up the timeline view of my profile:

Facebook timeline

Next up: the activity log:

Arkid Mitra - Activity Log

dNext up : The washington post social reader:

Washington post - news reader

We will write more about these massive changes as we use Facebook over the next couple of days. Get in touch with the writer at mitra[dot]arkid[at]gmail[dot]com

HTML5 is a language for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web, a core technology of the Internet. It is the fifth revision of the HTML standard and as of September 2011is still under development.

The 5th generation of the standard web markup language brings much promises. It brings support for latest multimedia (without third party plugin). Web Apps (in HTML5) will be consistently understood by computers and devices alike. These Apps will have features of offline access, geolocation among others. And the most lucrative of all, it gives the much needed option for unification in the fragmented Mobile landscape.

Circa 2007. Apple introduced the revolution that was iPhone. And with its launch, was also  introduced the now popular (and patented !) App Store. It was a platform where developers could build applications for the iPhone (inside Apple’s walled garden of course). This shook up the control that carriers had until now.  Apple’s App store ran without competition for almost 2 years. Android came along and though the OS itself has been a runaway success, Android Market has not quite been the same. With two major Mobile Platforms in place and one of them (Android) with major fragmentation issues, its been a pain for developers to build their applications that run smoothly across platforms and devices.

HTML5 promises to change all that. Everyone loves to love the open standard culture. And that is the reason, most developers will speak highly of Web Apps. Certain section of people want to break free of Apple’s App store policies as well. The picture above portrays (in light spirit of course) a free ecosystem -- HTML5 (represented by Batman) and a closed proprietary system, say the App store -- represented by Native (Joker in the picture). (The picture is courtesy venturebeat). Lets see how our Batman and Joker fare on some of the standard parameters:

(the one -- between HTML5 and Native, that appears first, leads in the area -- my personal opinion)

Platform Independence :

[HTML5] : It runs on the browser . A ‘one-for-all’ development approach can work. Saves time, money.

[Native]  : What about security ? Anything that runs on the client side is vulnerable and open to attack. In case of Web Apps, with todays modern browsers and debugging tools, user control is easier than ever to abuse.

Feature Rich :

[Native]  : The App experience speaks for itself. Not to mention the deep integration with the devices. Swipe/multi touch makes the user experience a delight. Interaction with device features -- bluetooth/camera/GPS (and some level of direct OS interaction) helps them do things, Web Apps simply cant. At least not yet.

[HTML5] : HTML5 is an evolving ecosystem with specifications still to close. For now there are Hybrid frameworks like PhoneGap which fills the gap by exposing native features as web services. This is an interim solution. Web standards are evolving rapidly and with the kind of interset that surrouns HTML5, W3c might actually increase its snail pace ! Smartphone browsers are getting increasingly complaint -- with Android 3.1 giving support for camera.

Performance :

[Native]  : Native apps run fast. It just does. They have tight integration with the device and make use of device performance enhancers like GPU accelerator and multithreading.

[HTML5] : Google has an inherent interest in getting the Web faster. Javascript engine V8 that ships with chrome (Android’s browser is closely a fork of Chrome) has only gotten faster. Not all of the Mobile Apps are performance intensive games (although games are what  half of the App ecosystem is about). Magazine/news/mail/social networking apps can just run fine as Web Apps.  Mobile web will likely see all the performance optimizer libraries coming to it sooner than later.

Developer Experience :

[HTML5] : This is ‘the’ pro reasoning for Web Apps. You develop once and it runs on Android, iOS (WP, Blackberry too). Well, theoretically. One shouldn’t forget that Web has historically been fragmented. Good thing is, web developers have gotten used to this aspect. Plus  HTML5 and CSS3 are pretty much creating standardization. Feature detection on devices is no hassle thanks to tools like Modernizer.

[Native]  : Native Apps are developed in robust programming languages -- Java, Objective C, C++. Most developers already have a background in them and hence the comfort. Debugging is easy with desktop emulators that provide a close representation of the target device.

User Experience :

[Native]  : Undoubtedly Native scores here. The look and feel of the Native Apps just works. Each platform has its unique user experience that its native software library provides. Certain gestures have specific behavior on each platform. And Native Apps leverage that UX effortlessly.

[HTML5] : Web too has its own look and feel. And if one were to prioritize towards a specific ecosystem, there is something called browser detection. Plus Apps more often have their own unique feel about them.

Visibility :

[Native]  : App store and Android market enjoy their own following. Once you submit your app there (and considering your App is good), it can easily get noticed in a large section of regulars of that platform. Top ratings, reviews are means to bag attention. Its really a store where you have put your App to get noticed.

[HTML5] : Web has a far bigger user base than any Market or App store can possibly have. Of course there is no dedicated place for HTML5 Web Apps now. But that may soon be changing. Chrome store (although for desktop apps) is a step in that direction. Someday there will be a web store. Until then, search engines exist for a reason.

Monetization : 

[Native]  : Native App stores have an established monetization model. There is pay per use mechanism, where the developer gets the price of the App minus the cut (30%). There are cross promotional ways too, in which an app is advertised inside another app.  Then there is the standard ads/subscription mechanisms. All in all, its a secure and proven system.

[HTML5] : If a developer succeeds in getting his App abuzz on the Web, he doesnot have to go through the App Store (or Market’s) 30% cut. You get what your app is worth for. Though the secure in app payment model is not here, but the traditional ways of monetization that have existed on the Web are very much there for Web Apps. There is also the option of creating a wrapper App (creating a pseudo app that shows on app store and on clicking takes you to the actual web app), but honestly that sounds kind of cheap, really.

So, on most parameters, Native Apps stand out (as of present day). But future is unknown and technology is ever dynamic.   One never knows who wins this race in the long run. Momentum is certainly with the Web Apps but capabilities and execution back up the Native Apps. But which model suits an app is a more specific question and the answer has to come from what the app is about. For certain kinds of apps (light ones mostly) -- magazines/news/social/simple games, Web Apps make more sense. But those that need deeper hardware integration/access, have performance parameters defined, are memory intensive -- Native Apps are more logical.

User opinions are solicited on this debate. You can reach me at -- vikashbitmesra@gmail.com. My Twitter feed here.

So, what has Facebook done to lose its charm? I would say-”Copied Google plus and Twitter“. The very essence of Facebook was to recreate the joys of college life in the virtual space. I am not an avid Facebook user, but yes I do end up spending 5-10 minutes reading through my news feed that includes the stupid but cute updates of the girl I have a crush on (Maybe!!!).  A couple of days back, Facebook launched the subscribe option and I was all excited. Wow!!! Now I can subscribe to Mark Zuckerberg,  Joe Hewitt, M.G Siegler, Robert Scoble and a lot more people.

Few days into this subscription thingy and my news feed was full of content from the social media whores and my cute crush was nowhere to be found on my news feed (I know I can use my smart list to get to her). Each one of these people such as Scoble are very happy that Facebook did this. They are supposed to be happy. They can now push their content to even more people. That is what their job is.

Alright!!! I can unsubscribe from the feeds of these people (I have not done that yet). But, these are smart people. They write viral content and they will get it shared by one friend or other.And my personal space will be invaded (too much intellect will come in).  Facebook was supposed to be my personal space, where I see those cute rants. Isn’t it?

Facebook can still get us out of all this mess by creating a separate tab for subscribed content (if my friends share it after seeing it on their feed, I can’t do much). Facebook must understand that it is fun to be on the network, because there is not much intellect push going on. Facebook must stick to what it stands for and not become my daily newspaper like twitter is. Twitter is supposed to be the space where celebrities share their bullshit and I enjoy it. Facebook, please O please, don’t try to become the next Myspace. Facebook doesn’t need to look like Techcrunch or hacker news either. I know Google plus is leading you into all this but you better understand what you stand for.

Get in touch with the writer at mitra[dot]arkid[at]gmail[dot]com.

A few days back i had questioned on why Google was not working on making its real-time offerings, such as Google News and Google Reader better. I have always thought that Google should have come out with a service like Flipboard before anyone else. However, Google’s ignorance of UI and UX have left them to copy and then get ahead of the curve as far as a “Flipboard competitor” creation is concerned. In-spite of all this, it is indeed good news that Google is actually working on such a service which will make help make Google the Agent Smith of this generation. Robert also goes on to say that the service is awesome. Under Larry Page, Google sure is taking all the right steps.

I heard from someone working with Google that Google is working on a Flipboard competitor for both Android and iPad. My source says that the versions he’s seen so far are mind-blowing good. 

It sure sounds like Google is storing up quite a few social announcements. I wonder if they are waiting for Facebook to make its announcements next week and then will open the door to a raft of new things? I hope so.

googlepropeller

We are not yet as lucky as Scoble to confirm such a news with someone working on the service, but we really hope to have it up on our Tablets(iOS and Android) and phones very soon.

Get in touch with the writer at mitra[dot]arkid[at]gmail[dot]com