Google I/O 2013 kicks off tomorrow with what I believe is a 3 hour keynote, yes you heard that right, 3 hours. In previous years I think that these have been 3 keynotes over 3 days but this year they just wanted 1 single keynote.
So, what can we expect to see tomorrow? (Seeing as it is 3 hours long I would hope a lot). To start it’s obvious that they will talk the socks off of Glass, how ‘well’ it has done and the endless possibilities with Glass. I don’t think that we will see anything new about Glass tomorrow as we are unlikely to see Glass available to consumers until at least 2014 so they have plenty of time.
The Nexus 4 may well get a minor update, hopefully with LTE built in as that is a major setback for many people (especially those in the States). Other than that I don’t imagine there will be anything major with the Nexus 4 as it is not that old of a phone.
Something that is more likely to get an update is the Nexus 7, not sure what but I think we can guarantee there will be some kind of update to it tomorrow.
Something that I do hope that we see is Google ‘Babel’ (or whatever it will be called). Google Babel is rumoured to be Google’s answer to Apple’s (and as of this summer Blackerry’s) iMessage. For a lot of people who are looking to switch from iOS to Android may be put off by the fact that there is no iMessage equivalent built into the system. As a side note I would not be surprised if Babel will be available on both Android and iOS.
Will we see a Spotify competitor from Google tomorrow? This would be an interesting one.
Some other people have speculated that we may see Google re-attempt the Nexus Q but I would not hold your hopes at.
What do you think we will see? What do you want to see from Google this year? Leave a comment below or Tweet me @TheTechBox.
As most of you may know Zach Braff recently used Kickstarter to help fund his new film. Many of you will know him from the TV show Scrubs and some will know him from his previous films such as Garden State (he is also well know for a number of other things).
You can imagine that he made a pretty penny from starring in Scrubs, so why the need to go to Kickstarter and was it the right thing to do? To answer the latter, yes, I along with many others think that going to Kickstarter was a good thing, what you have to remember is that the people who are backing this are choosing to do so, they are not being forced to. Zach wanted to raise 2 million dollars for this project (note that he raised 1.5 of that on the first day alone) but do you really think that it will be enough to make the entire thing? no. He himself along with several other 3rd party funders will have to put in way more than that, so those of you who say ‘why can he not just use his own money?’ he is!
Kickstarter is a great way to show other people that people are really interested in this idea. What you have to remember is that investors will only invest in anything if they believe that they can get their money back (plus extra) in the end, and by being able to raise this money on Kickstarter it shows that the general public is interested in the idea.
I cannot wait to see what comes from this campaign, I loved seeing him in Scrubs and this has encouraged me to want to watch his previous film ‘Garden State’. See the video below for some of the things that Zach has to say on the matter of kickstarter, the video is fairly long but is well worth the watch.
It’s been some time since app.net have opened up and has been some time since I joined but I thought it was a good time to lay out my thoughts on the service. The dust has settled around this new and shiny thing and it’s time to consider what the real world use cases for app.net are.
I myself and along with many others are mainly or Twitter or Facebook users and when Google announced Google+ we collectively laughed it off. Google+ was always so similar to both Twitter and Facebook that it was hard to find a use case for it, you never kew what to post and where to post it. With Twitter and Facebook there is an easy way to distinguish what you post and where.
“Facebook is for the people you went to school with, Twitter is for the people you wish you went to school with”
So, where does App.net fall into all of this. People have been pissed off with Twitter after some of their more recent changes and App.net sprung up as the Twitter replacement. There is not shrouding the fact that ADN is indeed a Twitter ‘clone’, this for some makes it even harder to work out what to post where.
I joined ADN after they announced their free plan and have been on it ever since (notice I use the word on and not the word using), as far as I am aware with the free plan you are only allowed to follow a maximum of 40 people which means before you hit the follow button you really have to make sure that you want to follow them, on paper this may not seem like a good idea but in use I found this to be great, sometimes with Twitter I find myself following more and more people which means I often miss some peoples stuff whereas on ADN I rarely miss a thing (although this may be down to the fact that people do not post add frequently to ADN). So far I have made a fair number of posts to ADN but no where near my almost 14,500 Tweets, although I have been on Twitter for much longer. Many of the posts that I have made have been cross-posted to Twitter, why? Simply because most of the community I interact with are on Twitter and not on ADN.
I like App.net, I think it is an idea that may go somewhere but right now I look at it as a backup incase Twitter really screw up, actually, when Twitter screw up. ADN right now is full of people who are willing to try out new things, with an even smaller number of active users. Because of the paywall it is both a help and hinderance to the service, it’s much like the iRacing service in that it whittles it down to those who really do want to use the service but it may also hinder others joining.
So the Facebook ‘Phone’, it seems like a super cool concept if you are a heavy Facebook user as it gives you instant access to everything Facebook related at the touch of a button (not even that on the lock screen).
This post is not really to talk about my opinions on the Facebook Phone (Facebook Home or the HTC First) but more or less what it means for other social networks and phone manufacturers. The thing that worries me is that now Facebook for all intents and purposes has their own phone, does this spark other networks to create their own phones or like minded products? In 6 months will be seeing the Twitter phone and the Google+ phone? In the world of Android and the wider world of the smartphone market we already have a lot of segregation between different manufacturers and different phones, we see HTC layer Android with Sense, Samsung with their own, Motorola with their own, the list goes on. Do we really want a phone that is hooked into a single social network all day and night? or do we want a phone that is well…a phone that we have the option of hooking into our desired networks.
The last thing I want to see from this is the other social networks jumping on this bandwagon and thinking that now they have to create a phone. Whilst I agree that Facebook Home is a pretty neat idea and has clearly been well thought out, it’s just not for me, I am more of a Twitter user myself. But saying that if Twitter did bring out their own thing to compete with Facebook Home I would probably not find myself using that either, I just do not want to be hooked into a single social network all the time on my phone and have it be everywhere on the phone.
Facebook Home does bring some tough competition though, I have read a couple of reviews online of the HTC First and people have said that you find yourself using Facebook more than anything else (duh). Facebook is right there when you unlock the phone and try and do anything and as $99 phone this is going to be very appealing to those who are very connected on Facebook. Whilst I do not think this concept works for all the social networks I think that the others do now have some tough competition on their hands. We have already seen some low level integration into iOS with Twitter and Facebook, will either one be looking to expand that? More than likely, will Apple be willing to do that? It’s hard to tell but I would have to say know for now.
What do you think? Do you like the concept of Facebook Home? Do you think that others should bring out their own?
This may be a little late as we are approaching the Chinese Grand Prix this weekend, but I though I would share my thoughts on the Malaysian Grand Prix.
The entire race has been shrouded in controversy, team orders deciding the top 4 (or in some cases not) and still the unpredictability of the tyres. Before I share my thoughts on the top 4 finished I better start with some of the ‘forgotten’ things, for the likes of Force India and McLaren this really was a weekend to forget, dodgy wheel nuts forced the retirement of both the Force India cars and yet another failed pit stop forced the retirement of Jenson Button after what looked to be a promising result. What were Ferrari thinking? After slight contact with Vettel in the first corner Alonso’s front wing was severely damaged, anyone with sense would have pitted at the end of the lap, clearly Ferrari had lost some of that sense having decided to leave him out, lo and behold the front wing fails spectacularly down the main straight and Alonso is beached at the first corner.
Moving on to the controversial topic of team orders. Sebastian Vettel was put straight under the spotlight post race after something he had done during the middle of the race, to all us viewers it was great racing but some would say a bit unfair? The orders had been given for the engines to be turned down in order to bring them home in one piece (a 1,2 finish and max points), Mark did as he was told but Vettel…well he didn’t, he took matters into his own hands and raced Mark for the lead. Unlike Turkey 2010 it was successful although the team were not pleased at all, Vettels race engineer Rocky said over the radio on the victory lap “we could see you wanted that win, still, some explaining to do”. Mark had had the win (some would say unfairly) snatched from his clasp and I have to agree, Mark had turned the engine power down giving Vettel and unfair advantage over him.
Mercedes have had a great start to the season and looked to be challenging for the top two spots at one point, although the end result was decided not through racing but through team orders. It looked as if Hamilton had used up a tad too much fuel in the opening stages and was told that he needed to save fuel from quite early on, this allowed his team mate Rosberg to catch up with him. Rosberg and Brawn (Mercedes team boss) had a few stern words over the radio and he was ordered to stay behind Hamilton and finish 4th, Brawn just wanted to bring the cars home. Whilst team orders are never fun for the fans Brawn was right, Rosberg had nothing to gain up ahead and there was no way that Hamilton would let him get away that easily it would have been fight till the end.
It was an interesting race that some would like to forget. Hamilton acknowledged the team orders and said that he believed Rosberg should have been on the podium instead.
Anyway, we move onto China this weekend which means that the BBC have full live coverage and that Eddie Jordan is back! Will be interesting to hear what he has to say on the situation.
What do you thing? Are team orders right or wrong?
Edit: Here is a video with the team communications.
Sorry if there are any spelling or grammar errors, this entire post was written on my iPad.
Google I/O 2013 kicks off tomorrow with what I believe is a 3 hour keynote, yes you heard that right, 3 hours. In previous years I think that these have been 3 keynotes over 3 days but this year they just wanted 1 single keynote.
