Google facts and figures

A small trivia infographic about the biggest search engine on the planet.

HTC Desire (previously known as HTC Bravo) is essentially Google’s Nexus One skinned with a different look. It is equipped with Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon processor and runs Android 2.1 operating system. So far it is scheduled to be released across Europe and Asia some time in Q2 2010. I can’t wait to lay my hands on this. View high resolution

HTC Desire (previously known as HTC Bravo) is essentially Google’s Nexus One skinned with a different look. It is equipped with Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon processor and runs Android 2.1 operating system. So far it is scheduled to be released across Europe and Asia some time in Q2 2010. I can’t wait to lay my hands on this.

Okay, surely Microsoft is not a force to underestimate. At Mobile World Congress 2010, the company has officially unveiled the latest edition of Windows Mobile, now renamed to Windows Phone 7 Series. It bears an interface unlike any of the preceding Windows Mobile software; instead, it seems to have borrowed ideas from Microsoft’s own media player and iPod competitor Zune HD. We should wait and see how this new smartphone OS actually performs, but with the Redmond-based behemoth desperately trying to rejuvenate its mobile platform, the smartphone wars just became more interesting.

Okay, surely Microsoft is not a force to underestimate. At Mobile World Congress 2010, the company has officially unveiled the latest edition of Windows Mobile, now renamed to Windows Phone 7 Series. It bears an interface unlike any of the preceding Windows Mobile software; instead, it seems to have borrowed ideas from Microsoft’s own media player and iPod competitor Zune HD. We should wait and see how this new smartphone OS actually performs, but with the Redmond-based behemoth desperately trying to rejuvenate its mobile platform, the smartphone wars just became more interesting.

Mobile phone operators form an alliance against Apple's App Store

According to the mocoNews article linked above, the world’s major 24 cellular phone carriers announced that they are collaborating to create an international applications platform which would obviously go head-to-head with Apple’s iPhone App Store. Along with the carriers, as announced at the Mobile World Congress, 3 mobile phone manufacturers (Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson) will aid this alliance. Should this remind us of The Empire Strikes Back?

For now, I suppose that this alleged “wholesale platform for mobile apps” cannot avoid skepticism, for the differences among these operators and manufacturers are too enormous to ignore. Not only will cellular phone carriers have to bridge distinct technologies they are operating on (such as GSM and CDMA; even 3G technology like WCDMA aren’t operated on the same frequency across all mobile phone operators), they also have to deal with all sorts of different OSs that their mobile phones are based on (feature phones, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Android, and so on). Wholesale or retail, how are they going to exchange and sell mobile apps which are hardly guaranteed to work across the 24 carriers in question?

(Image recreated from a Fugitivus post) This pretty much sums up how a considerably large number of Gmail users feel towards Google’s launch of Buzz. According to Silicon Alley Insider: When you first go into Google Buzz, it automatically sets you up with followers and people to follow. A Google spokesperson tells us these people are chosen based on whom the users emails and chats with most using Gmail. That’s fine. The problem is that — by default — the people you follow and the people that follow you are made public to anyone who looks at your profile. In other words, before you change any settings in Google Buzz, someone could go into your profile and see the people you email and chat with most. A New York Times article sums up similar accounts of criticism. Google recently emerged as a beacon of freedom as it threatened to leave China if it cannot provide uncensored search in the country. This time, however, it will have to deal with enormous backlash that not only does its latest implementation of privacy policy betray illicit lovers and ex-spouses, it also endangers whistle-blowers and political activists whom it otherwise seemed to protect. By now, it is too big a company to afford such a huge mistake go unnoticed. View high resolution

(Image recreated from a Fugitivus post)

This pretty much sums up how a considerably large number of Gmail users feel towards Google’s launch of Buzz. According to Silicon Alley Insider:

When you first go into Google Buzz, it automatically sets you up with followers and people to follow.

A Google spokesperson tells us these people are chosen based on whom the users emails and chats with most using Gmail.

That’s fine.

The problem is that — by default — the people you follow and the people that follow you are made public to anyone who looks at your profile.

In other words, before you change any settings in Google Buzz, someone could go into your profile and see the people you email and chat with most.

A New York Times article sums up similar accounts of criticism. Google recently emerged as a beacon of freedom as it threatened to leave China if it cannot provide uncensored search in the country. This time, however, it will have to deal with enormous backlash that not only does its latest implementation of privacy policy betray illicit lovers and ex-spouses, it also endangers whistle-blowers and political activists whom it otherwise seemed to protect. By now, it is too big a company to afford such a huge mistake go unnoticed.

PopCap celebrates Bejeweled's 10th birthday with year-long celebration, 50th millionth unit sold

PopCap’s most well-known videogame product Bejeweled has been out on the market for 10 years. The company reveals that it “continues to sell a copy of Bejeweled every 4.3 seconds.” Although Bejeweled is vastly underrated in contrast to classic puzzle games like Tetris and Pacman, the jewel-matching videogame has not only been downloaded for more than 350 million times, but also been ported to pretty much every platform including PCs, videogame consoles, mobile phones and airline seatbacks.

(Image © 2009 20th Century Fox. All Rights Reserved.) I have watched Avatar the movie a few days ago, on an IMAX™ screen with 3D glasses on. Overall it was a pleasant experience as a visual entertainment title; the movie is as remarkable as it can achieve technically, and definitely expands beyond what previously existing Hollywood blockbusters sought to demonstrate. Avatar is, again, hands-down, Tour-de-Force ride throughout the magnificent world of Pandora, and will be recited as a historical milestone in the motion picture industry, I presume. With that said, I think Avatar resembles more of an extended videogame trailer than a (traditional) motion picture. Surely it does follow the usual, Hollywood cliché in its plot, but the story is streamlined (or blatantly washed out), emphasizing the visual elements instead. Though Avatar is not the first movie to be shown on 3D in cinemas (such recent 3D films include The Polar Express in 2004 and A Christmas Carol in 2009), nor is it the first movie to feature some stupid storyline (that honor should go to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), yet it somehow transforms (or reduces) cinematic experience into something more akin to a rollercoaster ride. Not that it is necessarily detrimental, but I am just saying that what proves incredibly lucrative in the movie industry (in this case, Avatar) may not always be beneficial to the motion picture as a form of art. Avatar paves way to a new age of creativity-meets-technology; yet the future it represents, perhaps, signals the end of cinema as we know it. View high resolution

(Image © 2009 20th Century Fox. All Rights Reserved.)

I have watched Avatar the movie a few days ago, on an IMAX™ screen with 3D glasses on. Overall it was a pleasant experience as a visual entertainment title; the movie is as remarkable as it can achieve technically, and definitely expands beyond what previously existing Hollywood blockbusters sought to demonstrate. Avatar is, again, hands-down, Tour-de-Force ride throughout the magnificent world of Pandora, and will be recited as a historical milestone in the motion picture industry, I presume.

With that said, I think Avatar resembles more of an extended videogame trailer than a (traditional) motion picture. Surely it does follow the usual, Hollywood cliché in its plot, but the story is streamlined (or blatantly washed out), emphasizing the visual elements instead. Though Avatar is not the first movie to be shown on 3D in cinemas (such recent 3D films include The Polar Express in 2004 and A Christmas Carol in 2009), nor is it the first movie to feature some stupid storyline (that honor should go to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), yet it somehow transforms (or reduces) cinematic experience into something more akin to a rollercoaster ride. Not that it is necessarily detrimental, but I am just saying that what proves incredibly lucrative in the movie industry (in this case, Avatar) may not always be beneficial to the motion picture as a form of art. Avatar paves way to a new age of creativity-meets-technology; yet the future it represents, perhaps, signals the end of cinema as we know it.

Apple iPad and Dynabook

Although we don’t have to believe that Apple’s iPad heralds some future of computing, it is worth noting from the ByteCellar article linked above that the basic idea behind a tablet-form computer had been conceived by a computer scientist Alan Kay more than 40 years ago. The name of the concept computer was Dynabook; according to Wikipedia:

The Dynabook concept was created by Alan Kay in 1968, two years before the founding of Xerox PARC. Kay wanted to make “A Personal Computer For Children Of All Ages.” The ideas led to the development of the Xerox Alto prototype, which was originally called “the interim Dynabook”. It embodied all the elements of a graphical user interface, or GUI, as early as 1972. The software component of this research was Smalltalk, which went on to have a life of its own independent of the Dynabook concept.
The Dynabook concept described what is now known as a laptop computer or, (in some of its other incarnations) a tablet PC or slate computer with nearly eternal battery life and software aimed at giving children access to digital media. Adults could also use a Dynabook, but the target audience was children.

Indeed, Apple’s iPad differs significantly from Dynabook in terms of target user and usage: the latter was thought as an educational tool for children whereas the former strives to be an entertainment machine for a broader range of people. Yet it is interesting to see the latest cool gadget taking cue from a historical artifact that predates the Internet and even the personal computer itself.

“
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008), British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist.

Over the weekend, I have upgraded my graphics card from NVIDIA GeForce 7600GT to AMD (ATI) Radeon HD 5750. Thus I have been able to run some real-time demos showcasing the new features available in the Radeon HD 5000 Series video cards. The Ladybug Demo, as seen in the video embedded above, displays a result of simulating depth-of-field effects that are commonly seen in photography but seldom available in real-time applications using computer-generated imagery on conventional PCs.

Real-time demos for the Radeon HD 5000 Series video cards are available for download here.