Web Concepts

Archive for the ‘Google’ Category

The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947, are the oldest known biblical manuscripts. Five scrolls are currently available on the Israel Museum's website: The Great Isaiah Scroll, The Temple Scroll, The War Scroll, The Community Rule Scroll and The Commentary on the Habakkuk Scroll. They were photographed in up to 1,200 megapixel high resolution, high enough that you can zoom in and see cracks and discolorations in the animal skin the verses are written on.

The Great Isaiah Scroll is divided into chapters and verses, shown on mouse-over, and gives you an English translation of the verse when you click on it. The website also allows you to leave comments, a sort of marginalia for the modern age. Learn more about the scrolls and their digitization in the video below.

How does that translate? Google also estimated that its total carbon emissions for 2010 were just below 1.5 million metric tons. Not all of Google’s electricity comes from carbon resources--a quarter comes from renewable fuels like wind, thanks to some deals the company has made with utilities--but that’s still some decent tonnage.

Still, Google argues that its consumption really isn’t so bad. Its data centers carry out billions of operations--a billion searches per day alone--and many of those save fuel. Google searches save trips to the library or the travel agent, for instance, offsetting the power consumed by its processing farms. And when you break it down it’s not so bad, considering the vast numbers of people using Google’s services. The company said an average user consumes just 180-watt hours per month, which roughly equates to running a 60-watt light bulb for three hours.

And how does that power usage break down? Google apparently didn’t detail every last watt, but it did say that search queries only burn 12.5 million of those 260 million watts. As for the other quarter billion, it’s probably a pretty even split between Gchat and Rebecca Black.

[NYT]

Tech should be approachable, artful, and radically simple

The Jobsian philosophy is so fundamentally different from the ethos of the other tech giants--Microsoft especially, but also Sony, Google, Facebook, and (until last week) HP--that it's surprising that Jobs came from the same place and time. The core Silicon Valley companies all sprung from the tinkerers-in-garages set, a state of mind that's remained essential to techies decades later. Jobs was a key member of that group, and his work with Apple in the company's early years is not really so different from Microsoft's early work, though Jobs was always less of a businessman and perhaps a bit more autocratic (especially as regards licensing).

After he was ousted by Apple's board in 1985, he spent a decade creating another company, NeXT Computing, from scratch. It's tempting to chalk up his later success to some of the life changes that happened during this time (which you can read more about in Gizmodo's timeline)--meeting his biological family, getting married, having two children, beginning to identify as Buddhist--but the change in attitude and work habits that enabled his success might be more easily explained with simple math. The guy was barely 30 years old when he was forced out of Apple, and 40 when he came back. And it was when he came back that his vision coagulated into something tangible.

The Jobsian vision is a variation on minimalism, something completely unexpected when dealing with computers, inherently complex devices. To Jobs, computers are for real people. Not businessmen (ahem HP) or corporations (ahem Microsoft), but people. Computers should be beautiful objects. (Jobs at one point said, when resigning from Apple in 1985, "If Apple becomes a place where computers are a commodity item, where the romance is gone, and where people forget that computers are the most incredible invention that man has ever invented, I'll feel I have lost Apple.") Computers should be intuitive and simple, but never dull. It is the duty of the computer's maker to discover the best way to do things, and to eliminate anything that makes that path difficult. And when you make something simple, the details become the most important thing.

Click to launch our guide to Steve Jobs's minimalist ethos.

The easiest comparison, to me, is to a chef. Take the best ingredients, assemble them simply but precisely, and present a finished dish the way it should be consumed. No extra garnishes, nothing superfluous. Too much is worse than too little. No optional sauces, no mix-and-match, no "add this if you want." The chef is the expert here, not the patron.

That mentality has irked or infuriated the tinkerers, as well it should. There's certainly a sense of smugness--the Jobsian philosophy says "I know the way this should be done." And it has led Apple astray, sometimes. But Apple is also backed by undeniably brilliant engineers and designers (chief among them Jon Ives), which is why their products are successes more often than not. A composed dish can be amazing, or awful, but a buffet can only rise to a certain height. That's the Jobsian philosophy, anyway.

That minimalism has had an effect just about everywhere. Apple isn't just a gadget-maker; the products spearheaded under Jobs are in the Museum of Modern Art. They've inspired similar-minded folks in all kinds of disparate industries, consciously or not. Apple was one of the first to fiercely embrace the use of certain typographic ideas (especially the Helvetica font), which is now used in just about every location imaginable, especially all over the web. Every tech company at least tried the start their own content stores, from Microsoft's Zune to Sony's Connect (some were more successful than others). Companies like American Apparel copied Apple's minimalism, while just about every ad strives to hit an "Apple-like" note of innovation and hipness. Apple's success in the future won't rely on whoever's sitting in the boss's seat--it'll come from hiring brilliant folks and adhering to the model already in place.

Apple isn't like Sony, which crumpled in ability and influence after the departure of its two founders. That's because Sony's founders were amazing engineers and designers--but that's it. Without their two stars, Sony had trouble. But Apple has a guiding philosophy to lead it, one that can function with all kinds of different leaders. With any luck, Apple will be just fine.

Google’s Street View is already available on all seven continents, providing pedestrian-level vistas of everything from Stonehenge to Antarctica to your own childhood cul-de-sac. Soon, it will be available in some of the planet’s most remote places: The villages of the Amazon rainforest.

Google is documenting the Amazon and Rio Negro rivers, floating the company’s Street View-equipped tricycle atop a riverboat. Local residents will help take some of the pictures, and Google plans to leave some of its equipment in the Amazon so locals can continue doing the work, the company says on its blog.

Workers will pedal the Street View trike down dirt paths in remote Amazon villages, documenting regions that have never even heard of computers, let alone the Internet.

This is all being done in partnership with the Foundation for a Sustainable Amazon, a local non-profit conservation group. Google says the FAS approached the company two years ago and invited representatives to the area. The FAS believes an Amazon Street View (River View?) would help people understand the area on a more intimate level — they’ll see what a village really looks like, and what it would be like to work in an Amazon school.

“It is very important to show the world not only the environment and the way of life of the traditional population, but to sensitize the world to the challenges of climate change, deforestation and combating poverty,” said FAS project leader Gabriel Ribenboim, speaking to the BBC.

Google is starting out with a 30-mile stretch of the Rio Negro River, extending from the Tumbira community near Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas. No word on whether the native populations are worried about their privacy.

[Google Blog via BBC]

Home energy-monitoring systems have wilted, green job growth is lackluster, and we're left to worry about the state of green tech

Cisco Systems is the latest tech giant to abandon its foray into home energy management systems, on the heels of announcements earlier this summer by Microsoft and Google. Cisco’s networking prowess was supposed to help connect the various software systems used to control heating, cooling, ventilation and other environmental factors in a home or building, but the company is moving away from that project, according to Adam Aston over at GreenBiz.

The news emerged in an investor call last week, GreenBiz reports. Cisco’s own words on the subject require some kind of MBA jargon translator, but the gist is that Cisco is moving away from household energy-monitoring products, and will maintain a mere toehold in the industrial product market.

Previously, Google announced it was retiring its PowerMeter service in September, and Microsoft announced its Hohm project will transition away from households to commercial buildings. Both programs are web-based tools that let individuals monitor their home’s energy consumption, analyzing usage and recommending changes that could save energy. But consumers have been indifferent — in each case, weak consumer demand drove the tech firms’ decisions.

A reviewer at GreenTech Media who attempted to use these products suggests their own abilities may be to blame here. Maybe it's not that consumers don't care about energy efficiency, it's that recommending an 18-cent-per-hour savings is just not that awesome.

Not everyone is getting out of the home-energy business — there are several other companies selling consumer energy monitoring systems, Panasonic, Intel, Apple and GE among them. But still, the departure of the above-mentioned giants is probably not a good sign. Perhaps it’s hard to convince people there's some value in learning about the nitty-gritty details of their own power use. Or maybe it's a symptom of something worse — that green trends suffer when a listless economy sends old-energy prices into a rollercoaster spiral.

This possibility is reflected in the less-than-impressive growth in the “green jobs” sector, which was supposed to lift America out of the recent recession. The New York Times’ Bay Citizen project surveyed the field and found some rather disappointing numbers in job growth, job training programs and even something as simple as weatherization projects.

Without consumer interest, corporations see little profit motive for going green, apparently even with government incentives. Many federal and state efforts, including several funding injections through the 2009 stimulus program, have “largely failed,” the Times says. Take, for example, California, which was awarded $186 million in federal stimulus money to weatherize drafty homes. Two years later, the state has spent about half that money and created the equivalent of just 538 full-time jobs in the last quarter.

“Companies and public policy officials really overestimated how much consumers care about energy efficiency,” Sheeraz Haji, chief executive of the market research firm Cleantech Group, told the Times.

I'm not sure I buy the argument that consumers don't care about energy efficiency, but it's clear companies see it that way. What can be done about this disconnect? Tell us what you think in the comments.

[GreenBiz, New York Times]

Google+ is, despite that difference, essentially Google's riff on Facebook. It may not seem all that new at first, but it is a very big idea and implemented into Google's myriad properties, especially Gmail, on a scale we haven't seen before. Facebook was an outcropping of networks like MySpace and dating sites--centered around the profile page. Google+, though, is a sharing engine. Google describes the main thrust of Google+ as sharing: It's designed to let you share status updates, links, videos, and whatever else with exactly who you want.

To do that, Google created "Circles," which are essentially groups into which you place specific clumps of people--family, friends, co-workers, that kind of thing. Sharing is done to those circles, rather than to everyone in your social network (which might include coworkers, exes, relatives, and other undesirables). The layout of the Circles is pretty cute; removing a contact from a Circle blasts them into a puff of smoke, to which you are free to add your own laser noises. Interface has historically been a weak spot at Google, as many Android owners (or foes) will tell you, but the head of design for Google+ is an ex-Apple designer who seems to be overcoming Google's design woes.

There are a few other ways to communicate with a set group of people: There's an instant-messaging-type service for small groups, and a video chat service called Hangouts that lets you spontaneously jump into group video chats. The latter feature is definitely something we haven't seen before, and it's emblematic of Google's new strategy with Google+: Google wants you to spend as much time as possible in Google+, rather than the typical Google method of getting you in and out with your data quickly.

Then there's a feature called Sparks, which is sort of like an automated news feed--add your interests, and it gives you a stream of things you might care about, a bit like StumbleUpon, which you can then share with whomever you want. Presumably, Google Reader, Google's excellent RSS reader web app, will also have lots of Google+ sharing options. Sparks will run alongside your social feed (updates and shared items from people you know), though Google hasn't ruled out combining the two feeds sometime in the future.

Your actual network is created from other Google users, but you can add anyone, even if they don't want to use Google+. Just add an email address to a Circle, and that person can be emailed updates just like everyone else. According to this startlingly in-depth look at the birth of Google+, Facebook integration is not in the cards--apparently, Facebook is unwilling to work with an obvious competitor.

Google+ will be all over Google; aside from an Android (and, soon, iPhone) app, you'll see a link to your Google+ page whenever you use any Google web service, alongside the links to search, Maps, Reader, and all the rest. It's in a small private beta for now, as Google works on the kinks to avoid another Buzz situation. But this is going to be a major part of Google's identity from now on--if we're to believe the hype, this isn't just a new app. This is a new direction for Google itself. Whether people will use it...well, that remains to be seen.

[Google]

...and will shower your phone with deals, offers, and ads

Starting with the basics, we'd recommend anyone confused about NFC (and it can be confusing!) to check out our primer on the tech, which covers just about everything you'd want to know about the future of wallets (including the fact that we won't even be using wallets--we'll just be reaching into our robo-pockets for our superphones). All caught up? Good! So what's Google Wallet anyway?

Google Wallet is a combination of a few different mobile payment features. It's an Android app, both because Google is behind both Wallet and Android and because an Android phone (the Samsung Nexus S) happens to be the only NFC-wielding smartphone in the country. Google expects NFC to be in around 50% of all smartphones by 2014--a conservative guess, but the tech will need time to mature, so it seems pretty likely. Google's open to moving Wallet to other platforms like iOS, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone, but phones need an NFC chip to be compatible with Google Wallet. Theoretically, that could be done with a simple sticker.

The first and most obvious feature is mobile payments--you can tap your Wallet-enabled phone on a point-of-sale system (the thing on which you swipe your embarrassingly 20th-century plastic credit cards right now) to pay. Easy! But NFC is a two-way protocol, which means you can (and will) receive stuff from retailers and Google as well. Google is encouraging the use of loyalty cards (you know, the "buy 20, get one free" things that are undoubtedly cluttering your wallet right now) and coupons or deals. This feeds into Google's second new app, Google Offers.

Buy something from a store, and that store will be able to send you a coupon, right to your Google Offers app. Plus, Google's doing a little Groupon-type deal that'll send new offers to you every day. You won't have to keep track of these deals, though--Google Offers is designed to play nicely with Wallet, so that single tap at Subway will enable your $1-off coupon, pay for your sandwich, and make a digital stamp on your loyalty card so you can keep working your way towards that free meatball sub. That's what's available now, but it's just the start, and depends on how far the retailers want to go with the system. Theoretically, as in an example Google showed, you could make up a shopping list on your phone, and when you walk into a grocery store, be informed immediately of what's on sale, snag the coupons automatically, and be offered a loyalty card if you're a regular shopper. Then, you'll have the receipt saved, so if you get home and find that your milk has expired, you can take it back without having to worry about holding onto paper receipts. No more receipts! Ever!

Interestingly, even though the NFC chip itself doesn't require power, the Google Wallet app does, so if your phone battery is dead, you won't be able to use it. Once NFC spreads to essential items like transit passes and driver's licenses, they may have to rethink that--smartphone battery life is not outstanding, and it would be pretty awful to be stranded with a dead phone that can't check Twitter or buy a smoothie from Jamba Juice.

Google has already lined up a few partners, including Sprint (which just released the Nexus S 4G), retailers like Subway, Macy's, and Walgreens (and several more), and money-types Citibank and MasterCard. MasterCard is the real trump card here--they've already got a pretty extensive NFC system in place, called PayPass, that currently allows you to wave your card or keychain dongle instead of swiping it (a feature of dubious use, to be sure). But that means that field-testing of Google Wallet starts right now (in New York and San Francisco, at least), with 100,000 merchants nationwide fully set up to handle your phone-tapping.

Of course, not everyone has MasterCard, which is the only official credit card partner of Google Wallet at the moment. So Google's providing a pre-paid sort of account to every Google Wallet user, which works sort of like a debit card, allowing users to fill up their card with money from any bank account or non-MasterCard credit card.

Security-wise, we're happy to see Google is acting very proactive. The fears about someone swiping your credit card information wirelessly while your phone is in your pocket seem to be mostly unfounded. To make any purchase, you'll have to enter a PIN number. Even better, when you're not actively using the Google Wallet app, the physical NFC chip is shut down, with no communication to the outside world. If you lose your phone, there's a remote wipe in place that allows you to banish all traces of your financial information from your phone.

It's pretty obvious why retailers are excited about Google Wallet--they get an entirely new way to draw in customers, whether it's beaming them ads as they walk by their stores or putting up NFC-enabled ads that Wallet users can tap for offers. But for customers, it has the potential to be pretty intrusive, and even unsettling, from a privacy perspective. Google knows this, and have a few safeguards in place--geotargeting is opt-in, meaning retailers will not know your location unless you want them to, and they're emphasizing that they'd rather have offers delivered when users are looking for them than simply spam-blasting every NFC user in sight with ads for $0.50 off nail clippers at Walgreens.

Google keeps touting openness, transparency, and control, all important when people's money is in the mix. Hopefully Google can make Wallet useful for consumers as well as retailers, without being too annoying for consumers. The field testing is starting now, and Google says the full rollout will come "soon" after, probably sometime this summer.

[Google Wallet]