:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Friday, May 29, 2009 ::

Google Wave

Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave.
"Here's how it works: In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It's concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use "playback" to rewind the wave and see how it evolved."

Looks fascinating. I wonder if there are any plans to add media (audio/video) editing capability? That would be very handy.

Labels: Google, web 2.0

:: Dan 29.5.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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There is a pattern to my blogging here that shows that every time I buy an actual hard copy of a newspaper I blog about half a dozen stories out of it I may otherwise never have stumbled upon. This is no exception, here are my picks from Thursday's Guardian:

British therapists still offer treatments to 'cure' homosexuality
"Survey suggests a significant minority of mental health professionals continue to provide treatments to gay men and lesbians despite no evidence they can change orientation and concerns they are harmful...One counsellor who is a member of the British Psychological Society said: "Although homosexual feelings are usual in people, their physical expression, and being a person's only way of having sexual relations is problematic. The physical act for male homosexuals is physically damaging and is the main reason in this country for Aids/HIV. It is also perverse.""
This is outrageous. It can be criticised, if not demolished, from so many different angles I don't think I need to point that out. It's like a throw back to the 50s, when our society lost great minds like Turing because of it's backwards treatment of sexuality. From some of the quotes in the article there are, to me, some scary signs of counsellors forcing their personal (probably 2000 year old religious based beliefs) on people. These practitioners should not be allowed to "help" people again.

Are women doing better or worse in IT since Ada Lovelace?

Why not let the security services spy on Twitter? It's not like they'll learn anything from it

Getty Images now licensing hand-picked Flickr photos

Google's would be watchdogs are distracted by its chew toys

Vintage sound chips? They are music to my ears
Chip tunes goes mainstream?

E-government survey urges councils to free data

"Never mind the recession - Lego is now so popular that there are 62 little coloured blocks for every person on the planet. Yet only five years ago this family business was on the brink of ruin. Jon Henley reports from the Danish town where it all began"

Labels: Electronic Music, Feminism, Flickr, gay, Google, IT, Lego, News, Photography, Politics, Retro, Secuirty, web 2.0

:: Dan 28.3.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Quoting The Register:
"Late yesterday, Google launched novelty snoop service Street View in the UK, offering views of, er, streets. At launch, 17 English cities, four Scottish cities, two Welsh cities, and one in Northern Ireland are available for exploration. Up to a point anyway; only major thoroughfares in city centres are covered, except in London.
Cities covered, according to Google Blogoscoped are: Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Coventry, Derby, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Scunthorpe, Sheffield, Southampton, York, Belfast, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff and Swansea. The images (360° horizontal, 290° vertical) were captures by Google's fleet of Orwellian spycars, whose adventures across Europe we tracked last year.
Google's promise to blur out people's faces in response to privacy concerns has been kept up to a point. The automatic system for detecting faces could use some work, as many remain identifiable." Channel 4 News found a nice un-obscured shot of someone walking out of a sex shop. Oooh! Controversial.

Glad it didn't catch me sat outside the pub. And amzingly there's no one smoking outside the office.

From the Bristolian's who have been scowering it. A bike accident in progress, probably because they were watching the weird spy-car, and a bird in flight.

Labels: Google, Maps, Photography, Privacy

:: Dan 19.3.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Google Friend Connect (Beta) widget added to sidebar --->
Suck it and see.

Labels: Blogger, Google

:: Dan 3.12.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Busted
Originally uploaded by dspain.

Interestingly Google Street Map cars have been spotted snapping around Bristol and Birmingham. Despite the legal case against it is Europe and the referral, in the UK, to the Information Commissioner. They must be quietly confident.

France has already had the whole Tour de France route covered.

Labels: Google, Maps, Privacy

:: Dan 24.7.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Crazy Questions at Google Job Interview

That made me think! Good fun too.

Labels: Google, IT, Logic, Maths

:: Dan 19.6.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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I've been saying for some time that an embedded social network tool, that can be used on any website, is required. The existing social networking sites are too closed and self-serving. I would like to be able to use a networking gadget within my own, ftp hosted, website to connect to any other site that uses it.
Previous post on the topic here and here.
Well, it looks like Google have developed exactly what I was looking for in Google Friend Connect.
I've signed up for the preview release so look out for updates.

Labels: Google, SocialNetworking

:: Dan 28.5.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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iGoogle Artist Themes

Shepard Fairey
Iconic OBEY artist Shepard Fairey and Amanda Fairey founded Studio Number One in 2003, bringing together a gifted and diverse group of designers and managers, seamlessly merging art and commerce in a truly authentic way.
www.studionumber-one.com

Labels: Art, Google, graffiti, Search

:: Dan 30.4.08 [Arc] [1 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Open ID update: Facebook and Google anounce that they are joining the Data Portability Workgroup

Labels: facebook, Google, ID, OpenID, SocialNetworking

:: Dan 9.1.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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gusset trends
Originally uploaded by gusset.


Listening habits and searching trends
"The amount of information Google collects every time someone queries is astounding. Some of this information has been made available to the public through Google Trends. By entering in a search string you are given a graph showing search volume, news reference volume, a chart of the top ten regions, as well as top ten cities and languages."
Obviously I couldn't resist checking the gusset trend, see screenshot above.

Labels: Google, IT, Search

:: Dan 31.10.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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