Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"None of the companies involved will confirm the new Google Music service – we have “no comments” or absolute silence from Google, LaLa, MySpace and iLike. But the new service is all but confirmed. And we have the screenshots showing how the service, which will be announced on October 28, will look to prove it."

Full details on the rumoured Google Music are not out yet, but it appears that Google intends on integrating music and songs into search results. No, songs will not automatically start playing once you get to your search results, thank goodness, but Google will provide a box like the ones shown on TechCrunch which let you preview songs and buy them. I am not exactly sure how much usefulness this would be, except in maybe simplifying the music purchase process, saving you a few steps. Hopefully, Google will take this a step further and start offering more than just a slip streamed experience, or this might be one of those Google projects that never really took off.

When I posted about Picasa 3.5's new face recognition feature, the discussion that ensued quickly turned to the fact that Google implemented this feature in a way that severely limits its usefulness. Here's what I said in the Google Picasa Help Forum:

"I absolutely LOVE the way that I can tag faces - Google's technology is really great here - but the fact that the face information isn't saved into the file itself makes this new feature totally useless for a large number of people.

Like many people, I have more than one computer. And like anyone with more than one computer, I want to have all my pictures on all my computers. I use Windows Live Sync to keep my 18,000+ photos in sync across all my computers. I was THRILLED when I saw the face recognition technology in Picasa 3.5, but crushed when I saw how it was implemented. If it was only data stored in the picasa.ini file, I could live with that limitation since the picasa.ini files get synced across my computers. But it's implemented in a combination of picasa.ini files and the Picasa database, so there seems to be ZERO way to make this feature work with a multi-computer system. There might not be appropriate EXIF/IPTC fields for Google to implement this fully inside each photo, but why not make it all part of the picasa.ini files at worst?

And because of that, I'm not going to use this new feature - even though I really want to. Come on Google, you know that more and more people own more than one computer - why design a feature that's limited to people with only a single computer."

There are dozens of other comments from people who are finding the same sort of fault with the implementation of this feature. Google, amazingly, is listening - seriously, it's virtually impossible for me to get a response out of Google for anything, ever - and here's what one of the Picasa team members (I presume that's who this guy is) had to say. Read more...

"Yesterday I was given my Developer Preview account by the Google Wave team. To say I have been eager to try Wave out since watching the original video is something of an understatement! I felt a bit like Charlie unwrapping his chocolate bar and finding a golden ticket. OK well maybe not that excited, but you know, a brand new messaging medium in a world where I receive coming on to a thousand emails, IMs, tweets and SMS messages of day is something to get excited about."

I have seen the video and I have read the impressions that developers are now posting about Google Wave and I admit that I still have not bought into all the hype surrounding this new project by Google. To me, it looks like a mashup between email, instant messaging, threaded conversations (like you find in some forums) and a wiki. Does it look really handy and useful? Yes. Will it revolutionize the way we communicate? Well, maybe. It may just be such a foreign idea that one has to use it for a while to really appreciate what it has to offer, but reports are coming in that a public beta will not be available until September. I am looking forward to it from a work perspective as it looks like it will be a really easy to use collaboration tool, which I am finding is becoming increasingly important in today's business world. Has anyone gotten access to a developer account for Google Wave? Does it really live up to all the hype? Please tell me that this is going to be one of Google's more successful projects.

"Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve."

The Web is buzzing with the news this morning: Google's long-awaited "Google OS", something that people have been talking about for several years, is finally becoming a reality. Dubbed Google Chrome OS, this is a Linux-based operating system that will run on x86 and ARM processors. It won't be a reality in the consumer market until the second half of 2010, so don't get too excited yet. Will this be compelling enough to win consumers over to Linux? Most people want Windows on their netbooks, because while the browser is important, apps are still important to many people. It will be interesting to see how Google does in this market, and more importantly, how they're going to make money. Check out the Google blog post for more details.

"What is a browser? was the question we (Google) asked over 50 passersby of different ages and backgrounds in the Times Square in New York. Watch the many responses people came up with."

That video is HILARIOUS. It just goes to show you how completely clueless most people are about the technology they use - though I have to admit I was surprised to see some of the younger people being just as clueless. It shows that technical knowledge is much less about age than it is about interest/desire to understand. And, frankly, most people aren't geeks and they don't care about how the technology works or even what it is that they're using. They'll typically only use something different or better if they're forced to - a new computer, a new operating system, etc.

The guy who said he uses the "big blue E" is pretty typical in my experience - though what surprised me was the confusion between a search engine and a browser. You'd think the fact that Internet Explorer says Internet Explorer everywhere would be a hint that the browser is called Internet Explorer. But people clearly pay more attention to what's going on INSIDE the browser - that's the experience they care about.

"Google has announced this week that it has removed another barrier that prevents some users from taking advantage of Google emails service. Some users like the Gmail interface, others want to use Outlook to get email. Google has announced a new feature called Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook that lets users continue using Outlook to manage their email and other functions like calendars and still take advantage of Google's cloud-based email service."

If you are interested in moving to Gmail, but can't bring yourself to totally cut the cord from Outlook, take a look at the new features Google has added to Gmail.

Bing is a new search engine that's coming soon - and, this may surprise some of you, it's a search engine coming from Microsoft. After years of not making much progress against Google, Microsoft is shifting gears and creating a new type of search engine. I'm sure it will have similar index results to Live Search - which isn't exactly a good thing given that Live Search doesn't always deliver results as solid as Google does - but it has some very interesting "meta tools" that look like they could be very useful. Basic search hasn't changed much in the past few years, so there's certainly room for innovation - Bing looks like it might deliver exactly that. Check out the teaser video and tell me what you think...

"Thanks for all the feedback you have sent us about Google Calendar Sync. We're rolling out an update that should make it a lot more useful. Previously, your Google Calendar email address needed to be the organizer or an attendee of your Microsoft Outlook events for the Outlook events to sync to your Google Calendar. Now, when you choose to do a 2-way sync or a 1-way sync from Outlook calendar to Google Calendar, all of your Outlook events will be synced to your Google Calendar. If you haven't been auto-updated to Google Calendar Sync 0.9.3.2 and you don't want to wait for the update, you can download it here."

Google is pushing out an update to correct some bugs in their Calendar Sync. I've been too chicken to try it out yet, I'll let the suckers...err...early adopters iron out any bugs first (hehe!). My main concern is how well recurring appointments sync up between Outlook and Google Calendar. For those of you who've used Calendar Sync, do you have any good or bad feedback to share? Has anyone had their calendar wiped out or other horror stories? Or has it been smooth sailing?

"We hear reports that many users don't archive their email. If you don't regularly click on the "archive" button or never even thought about it, here are some reasons you might want to get in the habit. Archiving just means moving mail out of your inbox and storing it for safekeeping. Your messages will be waiting for you when you click All Mail or search for them."

For all you Gmail users out there, Google lists 9 great reasons to "archive" your mail rather than deleting it. I usually use the Archive button sparingly, but these are some good reasons to start using it if you haven't thought about it before. I can really relate to #8: Procrastination.

"Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) today announced that following a failed attempt on February 1, 2008, to acquire Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO), it had made a second proposal to the Yahoo! Board of Directors on March 30, 2008, to acquire Yahoo! for a total equity value of approximately $49.8 billion. This proposal was formally accepted by Yahoo! on the morning of March 31, 2008. In addition, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) today announced that it had made a proposal to the Microsoft Board of Directors on March 31, 2008, to acquire Microsoft for a total equity value of approximately $270 billion, which Microsoft formally accepted on the same day. On the morning of April 1, 2008, Yahoo! made a proposal to the Google Board of Directors to acquire Google for $1. Google accepted this proposal immediately, citing it as a fair and honest deal. Together, Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo! believe that these acquisitions will create a more competitive company providing superior value to shareholders and better choice and innovation for customers and partners.

On April 15, 2008, the three companies will meet officially to discuss leadership options and industry consolidation and convergence. On April 16, 2008, Steve Ballmer (Microsoft), Eric Schmidt (Google), and Jerry Yang (Yahoo!) will participate in a televised round-robin Dance Dance Revolution, SingStar, and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock contest, where the overall winner will be formally recognized as the CEO of the new company, Yahooglesoft. The remaining two participants, along with existing members of the Board of Directors from Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo! will participate in a round-robin Rock-Paper-Scissors contest to establish a new Board of Directors at Yahooglesoft. The new company, Yahooglesoft, will be formally established on May 1, 2008, and be based out of the Bermuda Triangle, before shifting to Virgle City in 2108.

Members of the press are encouraged to submit questions and statements to www.yahooglesoft.com/press. A mobile-friendly version of the web site is available at m.mobile.we-just-cant-standardize-mobile-urls.yahooglesoft.mobi."



Wow. Time to contact my stockbroker.