The Inside Scoop on Google's Visual Design Guidelines

A group of Google designers have shared the various quirks and guidelines behind the tech giant's visual aesthetics, giving us a glimpse at how Google works to keep a coherent look across its products.

In a two-part project posted on online portfolio site Behance, Google's Roger Oddone, Yan Yan, Zachary Gibson and Christopher Bettig said their "solid, yet flexible, set of guidelines" have been helping both internal designers and vendors produce work that supports the company's brand identity. The guide includes tips for designing logos, icons, illustrations and infographics.

According to the guidelines, Google likes its product icons to be "highly simplified, exaggerated and caricatured in nature so that they are appropriate for use at small sizes." The company's new icons are also geometric shapes that are front-facing, with straight, hard shadows.

The guidelines also detail specific color palettes that are acceptable to use in logos and user interface designs, with Google-specific yellow, blue, red and green colors and combinations.

Check out the Google-y guidelines yourself on Behance: Here's Part 1 and Part 2.

Google's simple approach to aesthetics has a modern feel that is somewhat similar to Apple's newly-unveiled look for iOS 7. Under the direction of well-known Apple Senior Vice President of Design Jonathan Ive, the aesthetic for iOS 7 ditches details like Game Center's green felt — a "skeuomorphic" look seen in earlier iOS versions — for a flatter, cleaner look.

"I think there is a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity, in clarity, in efficiency," Ive said, during a video played at Monday's WWDC keynote event in San Francisco. "True simplicity is derived from so much more than just the absence of clutter ... it's about bringing order to complexity."

That's why Ive said Apple applied a "coherent" look across iOS 7 and designed new typography and icons.

What do you think about the Google design guidelines? What about the aesthetics from Apple? Facebook? Other tech companies? Let us know in the comments.

Source : mashable

Continue Reading >>

Report: Google Close to Buying Waze for $1.3 Billion

The bidding war for crowdsourced navigation app Waze has reportedly been won by Google, which will pay "more than $1 billion" for the startup, according to Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. Update: The newspaper later added that the deal will be worth $1.3 billion.

The deal hasn't been finalized yet, but according to the report, Google agreed not to lay off Waze workers at its development center in Israel, and will allow the company to continue its development in Israel "for at least three years."

According to the report, the conditions of the deal will keep Waze CEO Noam Bardin at the helm of the company, and Waze will retain its brand and won't be integrated into Google.

A deal for the free social-powered navigation app for iPhone has been in the works for a few months, with the bidding for Waze reportedly involving Facebook and Google.

As Mashable reported on May 24, Apple was also rumored to be considering a bid for Waze earlier this year, but on May 28, Apple CEO Tim Cook denied that Apple made a bid for Waze.

We contacted Google and Waze for verification of the alleged deal, and Waze didn't immediately respond to our request for comment. Google replied, "We don't comment on rumor or speculation."

Source : mashable

Continue Reading >>

Google kills downloads on Google Code 'due to misuse'

To keep its Google Code developer community "safe and secure", Google will prevent developers publishing downloads on the service and is pushing the functionality to Google Drive instead.

Google Code offers developers a collaborative space to host open source projects that come with member controls, Subversion/Mercurial/Git repository, issue tracker, wiki pages and a downloads service.

The last feature, which allows projects to make their files available for public download, will be wound down due to misuse, Google announced this week.

"Unfortunately, downloads have become a source of abuse with a significant increase in incidents recently. Due to this increasing misuse of the service and a desire to keep our community safe and secure, we are deprecating downloads," Google Project Hosting said.

New projects will not be able to publish downloads, while the feature will disabled from 14 January 2014 for existing projects, Google says on its FAQ.

Google does not say exactly what that misuse seen on Google Code is and, while user reports of malware abuse on the service have picked up since December last year, there are only around 200 reports to date.

One user on 17 April reported receiving an SMS disguised as a free giveaway from Kentucky Fried Chicken which included a link to a malicious file hosted on Google Code. The malware distributor had four projects on Google Code hosting similar malware yet had no source code on the site.

ESET malware researcher Sébastien Duquette has posted 36 malware reports since December and security vendor Blue Coat warned last week that malware was once again being distributed on Google Code.

The move to Google Drive means developers will lose useful features that were available on downloads, such as project labels and download counts for downloads.

And Google did have another option, according to Chris Larson, a Blue Coat researcher who pointed out that Google could use its recently acquired VirusTotal service to scan for "obvious malware" on Google Code. "After all, these aren't exotic zero-day malware samples. What's up, Google?

Source : zdnet

Continue Reading >>

Google Announces Unlocked Samsung Galaxy S4

At Google I/O in San Francisco on Wednesday, Hugo Barra, Android's VP product management announced an unlocked "Google Edition" of the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.

"What you're seeing here is real," Barra said. He showed the user interface of the smartphone (pictured below), which he says is the same as the interface Google sells on its Nexus devices. "It's Google's take on Android," Barr added, noting that it will be available directly through Google Play in the U.S.

He announced the unlocked model will be available on AT&T and T-Mobile, will have LTE support, 16 GB of RAM that's expandable with an SD card, and its most appealing feature is that it's bootloader unlocked. The crowd of developers erupted in applause when he announced that this new Galaxy S4 will receive system updates "promptly with every Android platform update."

Barra said the device will be available starting June 26 on Google Play for $649.

When Barra announced that $649 price, the crowd laughed, apparently noticing the drastic difference between the price of an unlocked phone, and a Galaxy S4 that's purchased as part of a two-year contract with the cellular providers.

What do you think, readers? Is it worth it to spend $649 to get an unlocked version of the Samsung Galaxy S4?

Source : mashable

Continue Reading >>

Google Hangouts App: One Giant Leap for Chat Kind

Hands up if you've ever been in this situation: You start a conversation with a friend or family member at your desk on Instant Messenger. Away from your desk, you send them a text. Later on, you decide it makes more sense to speak face-to-face on Skype.

All of a sudden, you've got a balkanized conversation. And it's far, far worse if you're trying to involve multiple people. You quickly get to the point where you can't remember who said what to whom on what service on what device.

Wouldn't it be easier if it was all unified — if there was one conversation app to rule them all, on PC, tablet and mobile? Where you could pick up the conversation whenever, no matter what the platform, no matter what the year?

Guess Who?

Google has long been in a perfect position to dominate the realm of chat. The Hangouts service is the gold standard of video messaging. It's incredibly easy to add up to 10 people to a chat, and more importantly, to do fun stuff with them — share your screen, watch a video together, even wear silly hats and disguises.

Never has a more powerful piece of face-recognition tech been used for a more whimsical purpose. Google understands that wherever groups gather for social reasons, they need something to do. You need conversation pieces. You need the fun stuff. (In that vein, the company has created 850 new hand-drawn emoji for Hangouts' text chat feature.)

I've tried chatting with my family on Skype and iChat; both tend to slow down or break down, and a pleasant conversation devolves into a tech-support session. Google Hangouts just work. (Well, nine times out of 10 ain't bad.)

Until the company launched a standalone Google Hangouts app Wednesday, it was easy to be unaware of your option to Hangout on mobile. This was because you had to do it via the Google+ app. Mountain View doesn't miss an opportunity to push its social network on you. And that kept a whole load of less tech-savvy users — read, parents — at bay.

But to Google's credit: Now that it has decided to push Hangouts as a standalone service, it's pushing its capabilities to the limit. Facebook has chat heads; Google just vaulted to the head of the chat world. All that's missing is SMS and iMessage integration. But it's already starting to look like those services, at least.

Paradigm Shifts

Take a look at any SMS conversation. Your stream of texts with a given person never stops. The conversation may be infrequent, but it can go on forever. It thinks of chat as an infinite scroll.

It's odd that one of the creakiest chatting technologies in the world — plain old SMS, invented in 1992 — showed the way to the future of chat, but this is what seems to have happened. Facebook Messages picked up on the text-stream idea a while back. By adding video and photos, Google just leap-frogged them.

Now Hangouts never end; they just pause. The video chats live on, their times recorded, in a stream of communication. In this stream, you'll find seamless integration of Gchat messages. You can be chatting via Hangout on your iPhone, and what you just said will instantly pop up in your Gmail window.

You can share photos, and know they'll always be there in the social stream of your Hangout with a particular person at a particular time. This means the Hangouts app constitutes a credible alternative to Flickr, Instagram or Path; it's easier to find your photos if you remember who you sent them to.

(Sure, the photos technically live on Google+, but you can safely ignore that fact.)

On Hangouts for the iPhone, you can switch back and forth between video and Gchatting (or Google Talking, or whatever you want to call it). Which means Google just did an end-run around one Apple product — FaceTime — while also making irrelevant many IM apps in the Apple ecosystem. My favorite was IMO; now I have to consider whether I'll ever be using that app again.

Of course, you can probably guess the downside to all this. Say it with me now:

Privacy Problem

Remember how you could go off the record in Gchat? Well, you can still do that, but you can no longer make it the default for every chat. A tiny note on a support page was added Wednesday, and it said this:

We've made a change to the Google Chat and Google Talk chat history settings. You can turn individual chats off the record, but you'll no longer have the option to make chatting off the record the default setting for all of your chats.

Google, it seems from this typically roundabout way of delivering controversial feature changes, wants to nudge you into having a recorded history. It encourages you to see the Hangout as a softer, more social kind of stream — almost like Facebook Timeline.

What do you think? Will you download the app? How will you use it? Let us know in the comments.

 Source : mashable

Continue Reading >>

Is Google Launching a Subscription Music Service to Battle Spotify?

Rumor has it Google will debut a subscription music service this week at its annual developer conference, Google I/O. The rumor mill intensified Tuesday after The Verge reported that its music industry sources said Google secured licensing deals with Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group for YouTube and Google Play.

Google already has Google Music, a cloud music service, that lets users upload as much as 20,000 purchased songs (for example, their iTunes purchases) in the cloud and listen to them across their Android devices or on the web.

However, a Google subscription service with major record labels on board would put it in direct competition with existing music services, particularly streaming hotshot Spotify, which boasts 24 million monthly active users, 6 million paying subscribers and more than 20 million licensed songs in 28 countries.

Jim Cady, CEO of competing music service Slacker — which has 13 million songs and a newly redesigned look — told Mashable on Tuesday night what he anticipates Google will launch, hinting it could have limitations.

"We expect that it's going to be platform-specific and focused on the Google ecosystem," Cady said. "We're huge supporters of Netflix's belief in the power of ubiquity and we think it's incredibly important for consumers to have access to their music across a variety of platforms and devices — whether it's in the car, on their Sonos, Roku or iPhone."

For now, with 20 million licensed songs globally, Spotify still has the largest song library when compared to Pandora, Slacker and iHeartRadio. Meanwhile, Pandora still has the most users with roughly 70 million monthly active users and 200 million registered.

"We've seen several new players enter the space recently and we believe the growth and competition only validates the industry that we're in," Cady of Slacker added. "While there's a lot of attention on on-demand listening, we're seeing our users spending the majority of their listening time with our curated radio experience, which is a major differentiating factor for Slacker."

Mashable has reached out to half a dozen contacts at Google, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment for any details about Google's rumored music developments and will update this post accordingly once they respond.

One Sony Music Entertainment employee was instructed to reply, "No comment." 

Source : mashable

Continue Reading >>

Google Maps to Unveil Brand New Interface, Report Says [PICS]

Google is set to debut a new interface for its Maps app, according to a report.

Google Operating System, a blog that provides unofficial news about the search giant, said the update will get rid of Maps' current sidebar, and will display location information in pop-ups that appear on top of a full-screen map. The new design places greater emphasis on the map itself, rather on navigational tools such as the direction arrows and zoom functions.

Another new feature of the revamped app will reportedly let users filter local search results to venues that are recommended by top reviews or people in their Google+ circles.

The blog also includes alleged images of Maps' new interface, which appears more immersive, and suited to touchscreen mobile devices. Check them out, below.

While Google Operating System did not say when users will see the overhauled interface, the blog hinted that it could debut at Google I/O, the company's annual developers' conference, next week.

Last October, Google added some visual improvements to Maps by introducing terrain and color gradations to illustrate vegetation.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

What do you think of Google Maps' reported redesign? Tell us in the comments, below. 

Source : mashable

Continue Reading >>

Google Maps Said To Be Getting A Facelift That Could Appear At Google I/O

Google’s bound to pull back the curtain on some goodies at its annual I/O conference next week (though it’s being characteristically quiet about the whole thing), but could a redesigned version of Google Maps be one of them? That’s what the folks at the (completely unofficial) Google Operating System blog hint at — they’ve come into possession of a pair of screenshots that supposedly depict Google’s new approach to mapping, and if true they point to some serious modifications.

If true, then Google is ditching he traditional sidebar altogether. Instead, the company may be putting greater emphasis on the map itself and shifting pertinent information — think location data, photos, and Zagat reviews — to a series of cards that hover in the top left corner of the screen.

Oh, and the yellow streets are gone too. I’m just as bummed as you are.

As always, I’d recommend firmly grasping a grain of salt as you pore over the images, but they the visual advances seen in them seem just measured enough to give them some credence. The images depict a version of Google Maps that falls in line with some of the other design choices the folks at Mountain View have been running with lately.

Google’s been pushing those cards quite a bit lately — Google Now was the first service to run with the card metaphor, and the search giant recently revamped its Google Play Store Android app to put individual app and song listings into cards as well. We haven’t really seen those cards invade the desktop yet (unless you count those right-aligned boxes that Google’s Knowledge Graph results live in), but persistent rumors and leaks point to a desktop web version of Google Now that could go live any day now. Hell, even Google Glass uses what the company refers to as timeline cards to encapsulate and display information from Glass apps. All that said, it would hardly be a shock to see Google turning to Maps as the next service to get a card-centric facelift.

And hey, it’s not like Google has been all that great at keeping its secrets behind closed doors lately. Who could forget the completely unexpected Chromebook Pixel reveal that had journos and pundits scratching their heads back in February, not to mention the early Google Play Store redesign leak and the prematurely released video that touted Google Now for iOS that appeared just weeks later. This latest batch of screenshots may leave you with more questions than answers, but I suspect that all will be revealed before long.

 

Source: techcrunch.com

Continue Reading >>

Google Glass Ships To Developers This May

If you are a developer who has more than just a passing interest in the upcoming phenomenon that is known as Google Glass, I am quite sure that your patience has been wearing thin after what seemed to be forever ever since you placed a pre-order for the Google Glass Explorer Edition.

Well, we cannot blame you, considering how the pre-orders were taken at Google I/O last June. TechCrunch has some good news however, as they claim that said developers should be able to wrap their fingers around their Google Glass shipment “within the next month“.

I guess if you were one of those who placed your pre-order, it is time to head to the bank and make sure that you have $1,500 in your bank account, otherwise you will most probably suffer from sleepless nights. Bear in mind that no one is going to walk away with a free Google Glass, regardless of whether you are a developer or contest winner, $1,500 will still need to exchange hands before that.

Source : ubergizmo

Continue Reading >>

Google Glass already facing driving ban as West Virginia preps law

Lawmakers in the US have proposed a bill outlawing operating a vehicle with head-mounted displays like Google Glass, even before the networked specs are commercially available.

West Virginia Legislature Republican Gary G Howell last week proposed a bill that would prohibit "using a wearable computer with head mounted display", preemptively bringing Google's technology in line with existing state bans on driving while texting or using a phone without a handsfree kit.

Howell told ZDNet's sister site CNET that he believes the government has a duty make sure citizens don't injure or kill someone else when they cross the road because they're reading a message.

"I actually like the idea of the product and I believe it is the future, but last legislature we worked long and hard on a no-texting-and-driving law," Howell told CNET.

"It is mostly the young that are the tech-savvy that try new things. They are also our most vulnerable and underskilled drivers. We heard of many crashes caused by texting and driving, most involving our youngest drivers. I see the Google Glass as an extension."

Howell's proposed ban on networked specs while driving would make an exception for law enforcement and other emergency services officers.

The lawmaker was not confident the bill will pass, however, but believes that other similar legislation will follow.

Earlier this month, the 5 Point Cafe in Seattle, Washington made headlines by also preemptively banning patrons from wearing Google Glass in the cafe to protect the privacy of other customers.

The bill comes as more US states pass laws permitting Google's Project X innovation on roads: Google's autonomous cars. California followed Nevada's lead by allowing Google to drive the cars — as long as a human is behind the wheel — on state roads.

Source : zdnet

Continue Reading >>

Google's Android team reportedly working on smart watch as competitors do the same

Google's Android division is working to build a smart watch to create a new market, reports the Financial Times. The rumours of a Google watch come shortly after Samsung confirmed its plans to jump in the watch market earlier this week.

 

"We’ve been preparing the watch product for so long,” said Lee Young Hee, executive vice-president of Samsung’s mobile business. Google-competitor Apple has long been said to enter the market as well and is rumoured to do so this year, though like Google hasn't provided official word.

 

Details are scant on what the Google watch may entail. It is interesting that Google has decided to put its Android team hard at work on the project, rather than its experimental Google X team. This could mean Google sees a real promise in the market. 

 

Other than Sony's Smartwatch and Motorola's fitness watch, large technology companies haven't entered the market in full-force as of yet. Rather, it's being flooded with third-party solutions like the Pebble, offering Bluetooth connection with iPhone and Android smartphones.

 

Google has hardware expertise thanks to its recently acquired Motorola staff and a team of software geniuses that could be ready to tackle putting pure-Android on a smaller screen. There's a good chance Google will sell it on Google Play as well, along side its Nexus handsets and tablets, if the rumour does come true.

 

No timeline has been discussed. We'll keep our eyes peeled.

Is 2013 the year of the watch?

Source: pocket-lint.com

Continue Reading >>

Google Kills Ad-Blocking Apps From Play Store

Developers beware, after Google warned it will pull any Play Store apps that block adverts.

Google has sent a clear warning to developers of apps for the Google Play Store.
It has removed at least four apps from the Play Store that had allowed users to block advertisements that appear when using their Android devices.

Ad-Blocking

The reports of the ad-blocking app removals have come from the developers of several of the apps, including at least one developer, Adblock Plus, which issued a 14 March press release criticising the move.
“Adblock Plus reported today that Google has removed all ad-blocking apps for Android, including Adblock Plus, from the Google Play Store,” the statement said. “Adblock Plus claims that this unilateral move by Google threatens consumer choice.”

In an email to the developer, Google said that the ad-blocking app violates Section 4.4 of the store’s Developer Distribution Agreement, which prohibits the development or distribution of products that “interferes with, disrupts, damages, or accesses in an unauthorised manner the devices, servers, networks, or other properties or services of any third party including, but not limited to, Android users, Google or any mobile network operator.”

Till Faida, co-founder of Adblock Plus, said in a statement that Google has been unfairly targeting such apps in recent months and that this move marks the third time Adblock itself has been hit with attacks by Google.

“[T]oday’s action is the third in a string of actions that Google has taken against our open-source product: in late February Google began forcing Android users to manually configure a proxy server in order to run Adblock Plus; in December 2012 Google re-categorised Adblock Plus in the Chrome Web store and stopped showing it in search results when users specifically looked for the extension; and when Adblock Plus re-listed as an app on December 12th, Google took it down again 12 hours later,” Faida said.

“I realise that advertising revenue is important to Google, but understand that Adblock Plus does not automatically block all ads; we simply allow users the choice whether to block ads or whitelist them,” Faida said. “We even encourage advertising that is done appropriately and conforms to an Acceptable Ads policy, which is debated and decided in an open public forum. By unilaterally removing these apps, Google is stepping all over the checks and balances that make the Internet democratic. People should be really alarmed by this move.”

The disappearance of the app from the Google Play Store doesn’t mean that users can’t download it and use it, though. Adblock Plus is still available for free from the Adblock Plus Website. The app is an open-source project that has been downloaded more than 200 million times and which plugs into Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Android browsers, according to the company.
A spokesperson for the company could not be reached by eWEEK today for further comment.

Google Response

Meanwhile, a Google spokesperson said in an email reply that the company does not comment on individual app removals from its Google Play Store. “We remove apps from Google Play that violate our policies,” the spokesperson stated.

At least one other developer of an ad-blocking app also publicised Google’s action.

Jared Rummler, the developer of AdAway, posted on Twitter 13 March after he received a notice from Google about the action. “Got a notification from Google and it looks like all Ad Blockers were removed from Google Play today,” wrote Rummler.

In an update on an AdAway Webpage, Rummler wrote that his app “was removed due to ‘Violation of section 4.4 of the Developer Distribution Agreement.’ Thus, it will never be available on Google Play again.”

In response, he wrote, users who are seeking the app can find it instead through “F-Droid, the open alternative to Google Play.”

Several other ad-blocker apps were also removed by Google Play, including AdBlocker and AdFree, according to a story by TechCrunch.

Revenue Streams
A huge portion of Google’s revenue comes from ad revenues, so the ability of advertisers to get their ads in front of viewer’s eyeballs is huge for the company.

Google Play, which was created in March 2012 to combine what until then were separate sites where Android lovers could buy their favorite apps, music and ebooks, has been a huge hit.

Before Google Play, users had to shop through the individual Android Market, Google Music and the Google e-Bookstore sites.

Source: techweekeurope.co.uk

Continue Reading >>

Of Course Some Bar Is Already Banning Google Glass

There have been plenty of parodies exploring the creepier possibilities of Google Glass, so it should come as no surprise that it's already been banned in a Seattle bar, even though it's not even out yet.

The 5 Point Cafe posted on its Facebook wall earlier this week saying that it'd have no tolerance for the smart-glasses on the premises once said smart-glasses actually exist and are available to the public. From the post:

For the record, The 5 Point is the first Seattle business to ban in advance Google Glasses. And ass kickings will be encouraged for violators.

If that language sounds a little tongue in cheek, that's because it kind of is. Kind of. As owner Dave Meinert explained to KIRO-FM:

Part of this is a joke, to be funny on Facebook, and get reaction. But part of it's serious, because we don't let people film other people or take photos unwanted of people in the bar, because it is kind of a private place that people go.

And it makes a certain amount of sense. The concept of being surreptitiously filmed while strolling through a public square is one thing. The thought of being recorded sneaking a quick pair of double whiskeys on your lunch break before heading back to the pediatric ward is something else entirely.

But there was a time when everyone having phones in their pocket was wild and strange, and occasionally socially unacceptable too, so you'll have to expect we'll move through this and come out the other side somehow. In the meantime, just stick to traditionally sneaky recording practices at The 5 Point Cafe. There are still plenty of those.

Source : gizmodo

Continue Reading >>

Google Glass Can Help You Pick Out Your Friends In A Crowded Place

While the Google Glass may look slightly ridiculous hanging off your face, it’s hard to deny it has some pretty nifty uses. The ability to navigate your way around a new city with directions in the corner of your eye, or record things like concerts and sporting events from your own perspective is pretty cool.

And there’s another feature that could prove incredibly useful. According to New Scientist, Google Glass has the ability to find your friends in a crowded place, such as a shopping mall or a busy bar, based on the clothes they wear.

But there’s a catch.

The system is called InSight, and it was developed by Srihari Nelakuditi at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, in partnership with Google. It works by snapping a series of photos of a person to create a “fashion fingerprint,” based on things like the colors, textures, and patterns of the clothes.

It then uses that fashion fingerprint to identify a person at “odd viewing angles” or over long distances. So Google Glass could help you find your friends in busy places.

The catch is that when your friends change their clothes, the fashion fingerprint is ruined, and so it no longer works. What’s more, in other to protect privacy, it only lasts for a short period of time, “say for a day or an evening,” according to Nelakuditi.

But it could still be hugely useful. Say you go our with a group of friends to a party or festival, and you end up getting lost on your way back from the bar. Google Glass will have their fashion fingerprints stored from earlier that evening, and it’ll be able to help you find them again.

And it’s very accurate. New Scientist reports that in early tests with 15 volunteers, the technology identified people 93% of time, even when they had their backs to the headset user.

There will still be privacy concerns with InSight, even though it may only store fashion fingerprints temporarily.

As noted by Macgasm, it’s only a matter of time before Google realizes it can use this technology to advertise certain things to users based on what they wear, “or law enforcement uses the technology to pick people out of crowds and make arrests.”

Nevertheless, it’s still pretty cool.

Source: cultofandroid.com

Continue Reading >>

Google Glass: You'll kiss your privacy goodbye, and you won't mind a bit

Google Glass is causing quite a stir, and rightly so. However, the search giant's networked specs are creating a buzz as much about the threat to privacy they pose as about the new era of wearable tech they look likely to usher in.

The specs are yet to be released, but Google promises they will let users browse a map, check their mail, record a video directly from the headset, without lifting a finger. But will Google Glass' ability to (almost) silently take photos or videos using the glasses make the general public uncomfortable? After all, there are some conversations or situations you'd rather not have a Google Glass wearer inadvertently record and upload to YouTube.

Think about it for a minute. These glasses can instantly capture and store every move of everyone around the person wearing them. Remember that drunken argument you had with your partner? Well, now Google Glass will mean you have no possibility of forgetting it. If it's entertaining enough, or you're well-known enough, the video of that argument could well be on YouTube before you get home. Do you do a lot of business on the phone while out and about or while sitting in coffee shops? Will you continue to, if you know that every call could be recorded by the stranger sitting at the table opposite, staring innocently at the picture on the wall behind your head?

Check out this video (warning: there may be some swearing) of 'surveillance camera man,' who goes around passively filming people in public places. These videos demonstrate exactly the problem Google Glass and other wearable tech presents: people don't like being filmed in public, regardless of what they're doing.

The issues of Google Glass, however, go one step further than this: instead a man holding a video camera that you can clearly see, with Glass you won't even know it's happening. What if when the seemingly inevitable happens and a security flaw is found that lets an intruder take control of Glass — in that situation, it's plausible that even the owner won't know what they're recording.

While wearable — or even embeddable — tech such as Google Glass is still in its infancy, will these privacy concerns impact its future prospects? Are the technological advances enough to outweigh any erosion of privacy?

No huge change?

Question over "whether it's intrusive or not is one of these things that feels more intrusive now than it actually is. It's not a giant leap, or a huge change from things you can do now with a phone or with other things, except it's a little bit more invasive and there all the time, potentially," Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, professor of business psychology at the University College London (UCL), told ZDNet.
While Google Glass replicates functionality already found in smartphones today, people are more wary specifically because it is glasses that are being used to augment reality, Chamorro-Premuzic said.
"Symbolically it feels a lot scarier than it actually is, because it's what you're seeing and glasses are meant to be there to enhance reality. But, instead of enhancing reality, it seems to enhance people's observational powers into worlds that we maybe think should remain private."
While Chamorro-Premuzic is largely at ease with the idea of Google Glass he also noted an interesting quirk in the British psyche that may help Google Glass to succeed.
"In Britain people have this really interesting ambivalence where on the one hand we like to be very private creatures and everybody minds their own business. We don't reveal much or ask much to others, but on the other it's also a very 'nosey neighbour' nation" he said.
"The Big Brother series were more successful here than anywhere else, but that's because we feel so repressed about being observed or observing others that when we can let go of our inhibitions a little bit we take it to the other extreme. I wouldn't be surprised if they [Google Glass] did quite well here."

Google Glass: Evolution not revolution

While we are only at the emergence of devices such as Google Glass, the hardware is symbolic of the wider issue of trading our privacy and personal information for convenience. Every time someone signs up for a free email service or a social networking site, they are swapping convenience for privacy. With Facebook blasting through the billion user mark in the second half of 2012, the amount of people happy to make that trade shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon.

"People will tell you that they are a lot more worried about privacy than they actually are. Google Glasses are no different to someone who has dark shades and is looking at you and you can't see them [looking]. On the other hand, if a person jumps on a train or tube and stops making eye contact or looking at people around them but then goes on Facebook to check out other people and their profiles, that's kind of the same. This kind of intrusive element that technology has introduced occurs more online than offline," he said. "That might be the most progressive thing about Google Glasses — it's [this intrusive element] getting closer to the physical reality because it's out there, where our eyes are."

Ultimately, Google Glass will succeed: technology will win out over the potential privacy concerns in this case. The use of email, maps, cameras and everything else on smartphones is already far too engrained in our lives to stop that functionality being put in wearable tech, but when it does we'll collectively be agreeing that the possibility of being filmed in public without our knowledge is just fine.

Source : zdnet

Continue Reading >>

Google Play celebrates first birthday with week of free downloads and discounts

It's already been a year since the Android Market was renamed Google Play, and the folks in Mountain View are offering up a boatload of free party favors throughout the week to celebrate. Technically, the store's birthday is March 6th (yes, it's a Pisces), but Page and Co. have already begun serving up free music downloads, in-game content, TV shows, books, discounts and more. Though the selections vary by country, folks in the US can currently pick up a free tune from LCD Soundsystem, $20 in free gift cards through Gyft and a gratis download of Breaking Bad's pilot episode among other things. Hit the bordering source link to partake in the festivities or head past the jump to catch a video of how some games on the digital storefront are celebrating the occasion.

  
Source: engadget.com

Continue Reading >>

Microsoft Not Dropping Scroogle Campaign After All

 

It was just a couple of days ago when we reported that Microsoft will finally put an end to the Scroogled campaign (obviously, the reference of the name itself does point towards an anti-Google theme), but apparently reports of those were greatly exaggerated. According to Microsoft, “Scroogled will go on as long as Google keeps Scroogling people.” Now that is a pretty strong statement to make, and it sticks in the mind like super glue.

Word has it that the software giant was extremely pleased with how the previous two chapters of its Scroogled campaign went, that they are gearing themselves up for yet another chapter. The Scroogle campaign kicked off originally, hoping to achieve the objective of getting users to drop Gmail and settle for Outlook.com instead, touting that Google actually scans users’ e-mails in order to determine relevant advertisements that are placed alongside the messages.

All in all, it does seem that this healthy competition is good for the end user, as we get to see both companies remain on their toes to deliver the best experience possible at all times.

Source : ubergizmo

Continue Reading >>

Here Are Some Of The Problems Google Is Having With Its Self-Driving Cars

It's hard to tell which Google project the world is more excited about--Google Glass(es) or Google's self-driving cars--but this frequent car-driver, anyway, can't wait for the latter.

(The Glasses sound cool, too, don't get me wrong.)

Google is making great progress with these cars: The cars have now been driven more than 300,000 miles, and there have been no accidents with a car under the computer's control. (There was a widely publicized fender-bender in 2011, when one of the Google cars crunched into the car ahead of it, but the human driver was driving.)

One of the insights that people often quickly have when they ride in these cars, according to people who have ridden in them, is that it's obvious the computer can be a vastly better driver than a human ever could be. With lasers and radar for eyes, the computer can monitor an extraordinary number of inputs and react much more quickly to surprises than a human ever could.

I have always assumed that there would be much excitement around the self-driving cars right up until the time that one killed someone. At that point, I assumed, the years of litigation and liability arguments would make the technology so expensive as to be impractical for normal use.

One hypothesis that was mentioned to me recently by a person who has ridden in Google's cars, however, was the idea that, in a decade or two, your insurance premium will cost more if you don't have self-driving technology than if you do.

Why?

Because the computers will quickly reveal themselves to be far superior drivers than humans, especially given that humans often drive while distracted (texting, kids) or impaired (booze, drugs, drowsiness).

In any event...

Google is facing a couple of interesting challenges with the cars right now, one of which I heard about from someone close to the company. (The Google self-driving car team mentioned some of these in passing in a blog post.)

The first challenge is driving in snow.

When snow is on the road, the cars often have a tough time "seeing" the lane markers and other cues that they use to stay correctly positioned on the road. It will be interesting to see how the Google team sorts that one out.

A second challenge, apparently, is when the car encounters a change in a road that is not yet reflected in its onboard "map." In those situations, the car can presumably get lost, just the way a human can.

A third challenge is driving through construction zones, accident zones, or other situations in which a human is directing traffic with hand signals. The cars are excellent at observing stop signs, traffic lights, speed limits, the behavior of other cars, and other common cues that human drivers use to figure out how fast to go and where and when to turn. But when a human is directing traffic with hand signals--and especially when these hand signals conflict with a traffic light or stop sign--the cars get confused.

(Imagine pulling up to an intersection in which a police officer is temporarily directing traffic and overriding a traffic light. What should the car pay attention to? How should the car be "taught" to give the police officer's hand signals more weight than the traffic light? How should the car interpret the hand signals, which are often different from person to person? And what if the cop is just pointing at you and yelling, which happens frequently in intersections in New York?)

According to an engineer (not a Googler) who was involved in the conversation I had about this latter challenge, none of these problems are insurmountable. But they're certainly interesting.

The engineer's view, for what it's worth, is that self-driving technology will enter cars gradually, first for use in certain special and limited situations--highway driving, for example, in a form of augmented cruise control.  Then, eventually, after these baby steps have been mastered, the technology will progress toward the fully-automated electronic chauffeur that Google is working on.

Regardless, it can't get here soon enough.

Source: businessinsider.com

Continue Reading >>

Google unveils a more beautiful, reliable, and faster image search with inline results and metadata

Google on Wednesday announced a redesign of its image search feature on Google.com that the company claims is faster, more beautiful, and more reliable. Google says you will see the new look “in the next few days” but wouldn’t get any more specific beyond that.

The new design displays images in an inline panel and lets you quickly flip through a set of images by using the keyboard (we assume this will also work on touchscreens eventually with gestures):
Google says that going back to browsing other search results is as simple as just scrolling down and picking up right where you left off. Yet this is more than just a visual update: the company is finally going to show useful information about the images it is surfacing.

Google’s images section will soon display detailed information (the metadata) right underneath it in the search results; more specifically, key information will be shown much more prominently next each image: the title of the page hosting it, the domain name it comes from, and its size. The company also says the source page will no longer load up in an iframe in the background of the image detail view, significantly speeding up the experience for users.

Do you know what that means? It means no more annoying redirects and landing pages.

All those extra clicks just to get basic data about an image has always been one of my biggest pet peeves about the company’s image search so I’m rather excited about it. Google and Bing have played around with including more details by default (but this required a setting to be turned on), hovering over images, and so on, but I’ve still found all of this to be rather unnecessary. We’ll see soon enough if Google has figured out how to address all these shortcomings.

This is great news for users, but Google is also saying it will be a boon for webmasters. With image search ditching iframes that show the image’s original site in the background, Google says it will reduce the load on the source website’s servers and also improve the accuracy of metrics such as pageviews.

This might seem like a bad idea since image search often leads to a lot of click-throughs for many sites. To compensate, Google is making the domain name for each image clickable and is also adding a new button to visit the page the image is hosted on.

With these changes, Google has effectively doubled the number of clickable targets to the source page from two to four. The company says its tests have revealed a net increase in the average click-through rate to the hosting site, but only time will tell if the same holds true once users become accustomed to the new image search.

We’ll keep you posted as Google rolls out the new image search design.

Image credit: AFP/Getty Images
Source: thenextweb.com

Continue Reading >>

Developers invited to Google Glass event for 'two-days of full-on hacking'

Google has announced two Google Glass developer events in New York and San Francisco for developers who purchased the company's $1,500 developer edition.

The events will be focused on giving them a chance to "have a device to use while on-site."

Dubbed the Google Glass Foundry events, they will allow developers to see what they can do with Google Glass Mirror API and have Google engineers on-site to assist with any questions. The API “gives you the ability to exchange data and interact with the user over REST,” according to Google.

Registration begins 18 January at 4pm and open spots are sure to go quick.

The Glass Foundry San Francisco event will be taking place 28 and 29 January at the Google SF office, and the Glass Foundry New York will be taking place 1 and 2 February at the Google NYC office.

Babak Parviz, head of the Google Glass project, said in an interview earlier this month that a cloud-based API will also eventually be released so developers can integrate their Android apps into Google Glass. The Mirror API this month will be a good start.

What cool hacks do you think developers will put together?

Source: pocket-lint.com

Continue Reading >>