“If you are a Gmail user/Google user, you will end up as an Android user” (don’t remember where I read that)
Here is some notes from a reading in WSJ and the Consumer Forrester blog.
Few take away (speculations, nothing is confirmed by Google)…
- The phone will be directly sold to consumer (direct sale without going through the carriers, hense unlock)
- Code name: Nexus One
- Manufactured by HTC
- Running Android
- Google designed the entire software experience (applications and “look and feel”)
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In my move to Google services (more generally going “all cloud”), I started to use Gmail (love it though there are rooms for improvement regarding the UI) but I also wanted to start using Google Calendar.
Before: One agenda that contains both work and personnal information hosted in Outlook at work. I synched it with mobile device over USB or bluetooth. Pros: one agenda with all my appointements and todo in one place, can take it with me on my phone, nothing in the cloud (no “corporate” securiy issue). Cons: Mixing both professional and private appointments, I can not share it, no access control (my management could see my personal appointment ?).
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Yesterday Google announced that they have mailed out window stickers with two-dimensional QR Codes to the most-searched for or clicked-on businesses in its local business directory. The goal is to have them displaying in there windows so that by scanning them you will get all sorts of information about the business like phone number, photos, customer reviews,…
If you have a QR Code reader on your cell phone you can wave it in front of the barcode and you will be transported from the physical to the digital world.
An idea not so new… I am sure some persons have thought about it but Google just has the resources to effectively do it. They even partnered with Quickmark to distribute 40′000 pieces of their software for iPhone for free (instead of $1.99). iPhone owner go ahead and download it!
Last week I decided to leave aside my doubts about Google and went “all Google“. I am already an user of many Google services (like Adsense, Analytics, Google Docs,…) but I am in the process of integrating Gmail and Google Calendar in my workflow. Big move to host those datas in the Google Cloud but the services look good enough and they are so well packaged with nice features that it is probably worth it. I am not 100% sure I can trust Google but I have to reckon that so far they have been pretty good at not fooling around with my datas and hopefully it will remain like that (why would not they?). Also, unlike some “competitors”, they do not try to lock you down by “encrypting” your datas in some proprietary formats, you can always move away with your datas in an interoperable format.
Coincidentally I have been playing around with an Android phone and it appears quite obvious now that any Google user will end up as an Android user (if it is not done yet).
Right now I am trying to find the best possible way to move and manage my agenda with Google Doc, Outlook, my phone… more on that later.
One more thought, I might be about to fully trust Google but I am still wondering if the monopol they are building up on the internet is not dangerous.
I have been playing around with Jolicloud lately on a Eeepc 1008HA netbook…
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I thought that my iPhone was broken yesterday night. I plugged it on my computer to charge it and synch it with iTunes for my weekly dose of podcasts and the screen turned suddenly black (”à la” windows blue screen) and that’s it, no way to switch on again.
I had to quickly found alternatives tools… on the left an iPod 1st gen (I bet you have not seen one of this for quite some time mmh ?), and on the right an HTC Magic phone. Both needed to be charged but are working just fine. The Android phone gets the preference over my good old N95 because I wanted to take the opportunity of trying out “new” Google OS.
It actually appears that a hard reboot was enough to heal my iPhone. I did not think of it at first because I am used to simply remove the battery on my N95 but it does seem quite obvious now (more and more often I do really wonder if I am really an engineer…).
I have to admit that I was a bit scarred to live without my iPhone but despite its recovery I will be testing the HTC Magic for a while… and might report here my thoughts.
Quelques commentaires sur le dernier communiqué de presse des CFF:
- Nouveau horaire dès le 13 décembre. Watch out!
- “Le réseau des CFF est le plus densément exploité du monde et il est à ses limites de capacités [ndr: blbablabla]. Une forte extension de l’offre ne sera possible qu’après la réalisation de grands chantiers de construction d’infrastructures, comme par exemple la ligne diamétrale de Zurich [...] Ben oui la région de Zürich par exemple… ou Lausanne-Genève???
- Amélioration du traffic international et national…
- Suppression des “Espaces silence” en 2ème classe: pas surpris! C’est pourtant une très bonne idée mais les gens ne respectent pas cette règle et c’est en fait en plus frustrant d’entendre parler dans un “Espace silence” que dans un wagon “normal”. Et non ce n’est pas aux contrôleurs de faire la pollice et de faire respecter cette règle de “savoir vivre”, ils ont autre chose à faire. Une idée à ressortir quand on sera mieux éduqué (et en 1ère c’est exactement la même chose!)
- Meilleur connexion internet sur certaines lignes: “A partir du changement d’horaire, les lignes entre Genève et Lausanne ainsi qu’entre Berne et Thoune disposeront elles aussi d’un accès à large bande. Swisscom continue en outre à développer le réseau actuel le long des lignes ferroviaires.”
Oh en j’ai commencé à répertorier mes trajets et mes retards… je peux pas continuer de me plaindre sans chiffre à l’appui.
It was quite a revolution when RSS became popular (created in 1999, it became wide used around 2005/2006) and integrated in almost all tools. To the point that some people were even challenging that it would use too much bandwidth… Why is that ? While RSS is a neat system to find out when something changes on a website it still requires from the client to poll the server. Bad designed client (that were not using correctly the HTTP protocol and its 304 status code) and the multiplication of tools (CMS, CRM and co.) would load servers and the network and eventually causing some problems. After a while we get it to work nicely but notifications still relies on the polling mechanism and its frequency. Good… but not enough for the real-time web. Real-time Web? one of the 5 futurs trends on the web (see also a list on ReadWriteWeb of the Top 50 Real-Time Web Companies).
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