Netizen

Inconvenient Search

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

It's interesting to see Google compete with itself.

How Google Plans to Find the UnGoogleable

The company wants to improve its mobile search services by automatically delivering information you wouldn’t think to search for online. .... relatively small pieces of information that I’d never turn to Google for. For example, how long the line currently is in a local grocery store. Some offline activities, such as reading a novel, or cooking a meal, generated questions that I hadn’t turned to Google to answer—mainly due to the inconvenience of having to grab a computer or phone in order to sift through results. ..... mobile devices made it possible for Google to discover unmet needs for information ..... the perfect search engine will provide you with exactly what you need to know at exactly the right moment, potentially without you having to ask for it ....... Google Now offers unsolicited directions, weather forecasts, flight updates ...... the pinnacle of this hands-free experience, an entirely new class of device ....... "In the future you might want to search very new information from the physical environment ..... Your information needs are very localized to that place and event and moment.” ....... Google Now already combines location data with real-time feeds, for example, from U.S. public transit authorities, allowing a user to walk up to a bus stop and pull out his phone to find arrival times already provided. ..... a search engine for mobile devices dubbed Gander, which communicates directly with local sensors. A pilot being installed on the University of Texas campus will, starting early next year, allow students to find out wait times at different cafés and restaurants, or find the nearest person working on the same assignment

Ingress And Location

Google Game Could Be Augmented Reality's First Killer App

Ingress ... will give the company even more information about your current location. ...... Ingress’s world is one in which the discovery of so-called “exotic matter” has split the population into two groups: the Enlightened, who want to learn how to harness the power of this energy, and the Resistance, who, well, resist this change. Players pick a side, and then walk around their city, collecting exotic matter to keep scanners charged and taking control of exotic-matter-exuding portals in order to capture more land for their team...... what it suggests about Google’s future plans, which seem to revolve around finding new ways to extend its reach from the browser on your laptop to the devices you carry with you at all times. The goal makes plenty of sense when you consider that traditional online advertising—Google’s bread and butter—could eventually be eclipsed by mobile, location-based advertising. ...... Portals are found in public places—in San Francisco, where I was playing, this includes city landmarks such as museums, statues, and murals. Resistance portals are blue, Enlightened ones are green, and there are also some gray ones out there that remain unclaimed.

Windows 8: Another Case For The Chromebook

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Image via CrunchBase

A most amazing thing about the Chromebook - and there are many - is you don't need anti-virus software on it. The plan seems to be that you stop paying your annual rent to Norton and with that saving you buy a Chromebook instead. The anti-virus software is so expensive, and the Chromebook is so cheap and getting cheaper.

Same Crap, Different OS: Windows 8

Crapware has long been a thorn in the sides of Windows users. Consumers and enterprise users buy PCs under the faulty impression that they’ll be getting a completely clean computer when they break open the box. Instead, they find a PC that’s been loaded up with junk that they typically don’t need. What’s worse, all of that software slows down boot times and performance, since the programs are usually set to load automatically and typically run in the background.

G For Giga, G For Google

Image via CrunchBase

I have said before, if Google is to end up a trillion dollar company - and it has a higher chance than does Apple, Apple has peaked - then the ISP space is where it is at. Google has to go global with its ISP ambitions.

Google’s Internet Service Might Actually Bring the U.S. Up to Speed

a radical new business direction for the company .... Google’s gigabit Internet service is priced at $70 per month ..... Users subscribing for a TV service get a two-terabyte storage box for recorded shows and a Nexus 7 Android tablet to use as a remote control. (As a budget alternative, Internet at five megabits per second is available for a one-time fee of $300.) ...... it can cost between $850 and $1,250 per customer to get fiber installed ..... entry of superfast Internet may aid local entrepreneurship .... (In Verizon’s case, the company generally charges $99 per month with a two-year contract for service of up to 300 megabits per second for downloads and 65 megabits per second for uploads). .... Another route to juicing Internet speeds to gigabit-per-second levels is government investment. Chattanooga, Tennessee, received such a boost when the local power utility got a $111 million U.S. Department of Energy grant as part of federal stimulus efforts that built out the city’s smart grid

Wireless Broadband's Big Appetites

spectrum (Photo credit: Free Press Pics)

It is good news that the bad news is not all that bad. There will not be a spectrum crunch. But there is one now. The possibilities have not been realized.

The Spectrum Crunch that Never Really Was

Cisco estimates that mobile data traffic will grow by a factor of 18 by 2016, and Bell Labs predicts it will increase by a factor of 25..... when wireless networks are overloaded, the real culprit may be inefficient use of existing spectrum rather than a fundamental shortage. ..... "We don’t have a spectrum crunch so much as we have a spectrum policy crunch .... The so-called ‘spectrum crunch’ really reflects artificial spectrum scarcity" ..... “The challenge now is to extend those proven successes to enable wider-area broadband access using other underutilized portions of the spectrum.” ... such strategies could increase wireless capacity by thousands of times...... half the new demand through 2015 would be handled by small cells—Wi-Fi plus cells handling frequencies used by 3G and 4G networks ...... it might be possible to increase capacity tenfold even without spectrum sharing. ..... rigid regulations don’t allow the use of flexible new technologies like cognitive radio ...... “Right now, we have a 15- to 20-year backlog of new technologies and architectures, including sharing and small cells, which can take us a long way into the future.”