Posts tagged google
Apple iPhone OS vs. Google Android
Aug 24th
De cca 9 luni sunt heavy user de iPhone 3G. Telefonul este luat pe canalul oficial (via Orange), deblocat tot oficial si folosit in Vodafone. Combinatie mai proasta nici ca se putea, in conditiile in care platesc constant undeva intre 50 lei si 150 lei lunar depasirea traficului de mobile Internet (extra fata de cei 50MB care in viziunea Vodafone valoreaza 6 EUR + TVA). De ce sunt atat de prost o sa intrebati. Pai pt ca mi-a fost lene sa migrez la Orange unde la aceiasi bani primesc 500MB nu 50MB inclusi – unde mai pui ca abonamentele tailor-made pt iPhone includ si pachete de sms&mms.
iPhone 3G vs HTC Magic. Click img pt sursa foto
Am anuntat la Vodafone ca sunt nemultumit si ca vreau sa parasesc reteaua (am peste 6 ani in retea – s-ar putea chiar mai multi) si mi-au facut o oferta, cica de retention. In mod deosebit, extraordinar si nemaintalnit – doar pt mine si abonamentul meu – imi ofereau, tot la 6 EUR + TVA – 500MB in loc de 50MB. WOW! – Asta in conditiile in care brosura Vodafune iulie | septembrie 2009 anunta o promotie la mobile internet: 500MB cu 4.76 EUR (atentie! TVA inclus) si primele 2luni gratuit! Come’on – asta numiti voi retention???
Call me a Mac-tard, Mac-freak (nu e cazul) dar indubitabil sunt fan Apple. Recent, un coleg m-a ajutat sa constat ca noi, astia de o ardem culeanu pe Mac-uri cam toti avem iPhone-uri. Trasnaie mai mare nici ca mi-am imaginat dar se pare ca este cat de cat adevarat. Ok, sunt si fan iPhone – ma ajuta mult in tot ceea ce fac online si offline.
Si care e legatura cu titlul? Pai foarte simplu – pasul firesc ar fi un upgrade la mai rapidul iPhone 3G S – dar cum inca nu am bani de aruncat si oferta Orange este un pic inexistenta la capitolul upgrade, chiar daca migrarea se va intampla pana la urma, tot nu cred ca voi da 450 EUR pt un terminal nou acum (cam atat iese varianta de 32gb cu abonamentul de 19 EUR si contract de 24 luni).
Desi sunt slabe sanse sa renunt la iPhone OS pt altceva, daca ar fi sa o fac – probabil doar pt Google Android l-as “trada” pe Steve.
Recunosc sunt si un heavy Google services user si cum am impresia ca baietii sunt destul de potenti tehnologic, cred ca si Google Android s-ar putea ridica la asteptarile mele. Ar fi totusi o mica-mare diferenta apropo de oferta de aplicatii pt cele 2 sisteme de operare, aici Apple avand si avantajul lansarii mai din timp. Sunt convins insa ca tot ce inseamna aplicatie cu potential mare si utilizatori multi pe iPhone va fi portata mai devreme sau mai tarziu pe Android. Ar fi o prostie din partea dezvoltatorilor sa nu faca asta si sa piarda un segment in crestere.
Anyway – iata ca am ajuns si la ideea acestui post. Doresc sa dau o noua sansa Vodafone si sa ii las sa imi ofere un HTC Magic (avand ca sistem de operare Google Android) pentru a ramane abonatul lor fidel in continuare.
Post scris pentru concursul “Imi doresc un HTC Magic”, organizat de Gadgeteer.ro si Vodafone Romania.
Gmail Themes
Nov 20th
Just logged in to check my email and had a nice surprise: Gmail Themes
More details on Google Operating System
Google in 2001
Oct 2nd
Google has made available for a limited time period and in honor of their 10th birthday (until mid November) their oldest search index, back from 2001. Pretty nice walk in the past, I even found some relevant results for my online activity, 7 years ago: positions #1 and #2 are mine, while position #3 is my fathers’.
I invite you to do the same “vanity search” in 2001 Google and see if you left any traces online from back then 
Later update: Searching the names of todays’ Romanian online industry VIPs, I found some interesting results:
- Orlando Nicoara – March 22nd 1999, doing some business as the Internet Marketing Director of NewsSurfer
- Calin Fusu and Vlad Stan giving some testimonials: Calin, as admin of RoGenerator and Vlad as GM of allonline.ro
- Cristian Manafu as web editor in DMOZ for the World > Românã > Afaceri > Publicitate category
- and probably not Zoso, but someone having the same real name as him, who at age 19 committed some felony
Gmail video ads for Romanian & Russian markets
Mar 28th
Great creative stuff from Google.
Romania
[youtube KoYIBWd816Q]
Russia
[youtube WFDq95zHJIg]
via Manafu
OpenSocial Foundation – everybody is in!
Mar 25th
Yahoo announced today that they will join OpenSocial and that’s not all, they are forming, together with Google and MySpace a new non-profit foundation – the OpenSocial Foundation, following the model of OpenID Foundation. The reason behind this is of course to be fully neutral but still get everybody involved in this project, at full throttle.
The funny part is that opensocial.org gets redirected to a page made with Google Sites, a product of Google Aps
A big surprise comes from Apache – they released an "incubator project for OpenSocial and gadgets" called Shindig.
I find all this fuss extremely interesting for the web industry – including advertisers, strategists, developers and designers. Stay tuned for more "global" surprises.
via TechCrunch
YouTube Everywhere – major API announcement
Mar 12th
As previously covered by TechCrunch, YouTube was preparing a huge announcement today. Everybody entered the comment frenzy and started guessing different feature announcements: high definition videos, live streaming, white label video solution, revenue sharing program world wide, partnership with Hulu, etc.
The actual news is that YouTube is introducing a new set of APIs that will turn them practically in a white label video sharing solution.
For users, the exciting news is that they will be able to actively participate in the YouTube community from just about anywhere, including the online destinations and web communities they already love and visit regularly. For partners and developers, YouTube has grown into much more than a website. It has become an open, general purpose, video services platform, available for use by just about any third-party website, desktop application, or consumer device. We now provide a complete set of (CRUD) capabilities for uploading, managing, searching, and playing back user videos and metadata from the YouTube “cloud,” managed by us. We do all of the hard work of transcoding and hosting and streaming and thumbnailing your videos, and we provide open access to our sizable global audience, enabling you to generate traffic for your site, visibility for your brand, or support for your cause. Meanwhile, we provide full access to our substantial video library, enabling you to attract users and enhance the experience on your site. It’s all free, and it’s available to everyone, starting now.
Technically, we have introduced some new APIs. (This is just a geeky acronym for Awesomely Powerful Interactions, which is what users are now capable of performing from just about anywhere.) Building upon our existing APIs for querying the YouTube library and playing embedded YouTube videos, we have added the following new API services for external developers and partners:
* Upload videos and video responses to YouTube
* Add/Edit user and video metadata (titles, descriptions, ratings, comments, favorites, contacts, etc)
* Fetch localized standard feeds (most viewed, top rated, etc.) for 18 international locales
* Perform custom queries optimized for 18 international locales
* Customize player UI and control video playback (pause, play, stop, etc.) through software
As a fun fact, Hulu is opening to public today (world wide).
Hulu is NBC Universal and News Corporation’s online video joint venture. The site, which is currently in private beta, focuses exclusively on professional content and does not take on YouTube directly as a viral video destination. The site raised $100 million in financing from Providence Equity Partners.
Check out the new YouTube APIs and Tools and also the case studies for sites already taking benefit of the new YouTube APIs.
Google PageRank on webmyc.com
Feb 22nd
Any idea why www.webmyc.com has PR 5, whereas www.webmyc.com/blog has PR 3 ?
Later update: now both www.webmyc.com and www.webmyc.com/blog have PR4. Did I do that?
“I am a Google partner” but Google doesn’t give a shit
Jan 29th
Famous for it’s search engine spamming (Spamdexing), ClubAfaceri, a Romanian “business” portal is now proud to associate it’s name with Google Inc. They have implemented Google Apps on their website and they are offering access on their domain to the famous Google Mail, Google Calendar, Google Startpage, Google Docs, Google Talk, etc to their SMB clients. This is not an official partnership as anyone can implement Google Apps for over 2 years now – just as I did on webmyc.com. There is even a comment from one of ClubAfaceri’s owners where he admits there is no official partnership between his company and Google Inc, all in this pathetic story. Another more realistic coverage here.
Followers appeared rapidly and another Romanian portal (targeted on the auto moto market) – Masini.ro, announced it’s “partnership” with Google Inc.
Who’s next? Neogen.ro ? Not yet, they still have to cope with the trafic that domain speculations brought them.
Google Talk translation bots
Jan 11th
Google Talk has a cool new feature – translation bots – you can add them to your contact list and then just chat with them in your native language and they will reply back almost instantly with a pretty close translation (in the language of your chosen bot) of what you wrote. You can see a simple test on the right. The translation is not 100% accurate but hey …it’s pretty good!
So, if you want a translation buddy that will help you instantly with communication gaps between english and german speakers, just add en2de@bot.talk.google.com to your contact list in Google Talk. Currently there are 24 translation bots: ar2en, de2en, de2fr, el2en, en2ar, en2de, en2el, en2es, en2fr, en2it, en2ja, en2ko, en2nl, en2ru, en2zh, es2en, fr2de, fr2en, it2en, ja2en, ko2en, nl2en, ru2en, zh2en. Don’t forget to add the @bot.talk.google.com part at the end.
The really use of this feature will be handy also on you blackberry, if you use the Google Talk client for BlackBerry. With this you can transform you blackberry into a mobile translator!
For more information, there is a post about this feature on the Google Talk Blog.
BlackBerry 8800, GPS and Google Maps
Nov 19th
Since Friday, I am a BlackBerry user. I decided to go this way as Windows Mobile stability was pretty challenging when combining internet, email, messenger and regular phone usage. I am very happy with my BlackBerry 8800 and I have to tell you that this device is amazing – it hasfrig native support for GTalk and Yahoo Messenger, automatic configuration for my gmail and webmyc email accounts (webmyc has Google Aps) and probably soon, support for my corporate email account. The device works lightning fast and never had to reset it because it hooked up on some applications, like a Windows Mobile device would probably do.
A nice feature is also the integrated GPS, but I was a bit suspicious if it would prove to be useful, as I was told that I am stuck with the BlackBerry Maps application that is not quite relevant for Romania, at least. This, until 2 hours ago, when I discovered that the mobile version of Google Maps has GPS support and can locate you on the map in no time. That being said, give it a spin – you won’t be disappointed – the accuracy is amazing. However, I will not use it as much as i would want to, as the roaming costs for data traffic are not very low.
Good job Google! I think this is the future – no more carrying around large storage memory cards to host GPS navigation software that cost more than half the price of the device. Mobile Google Maps is free and it has global coverage + satellite maps + many more features such as traffic information, locations (restaurants, hotels, museums, etc)
Boss, if you will see some roaming charges on my phone bill, it is because I could not find the way to the conference and I had to use my GPS enabled BlackBerry to get there.
