Tag Archives: google

Google’s lesser known projects

Posted by Tom Schultz on July 29, 2011 None comments

Some of you may have realized that Google is more than just searches! Google is really diversified in it’s research and development. Here are some of Google’s lesser known projects.

 

Google TiSP:

Google’s free in home broadband service.

http://www.google.com/tisp/

 

Google Gulp:

Let Google quench your thirst!

http://www.google.com/googlegulp/

 

Google Romance:

Match.com and E-harmony.com don’t know you this well…

http://www.google.com/romance/

 

Google Lunar Jobs:

To infinity and beyond!

http://www.google.com/jobs/lunar_job.html

 

Google PigeonRank:

Homing in on your search terms.

http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html

 

Google MentalPlex:

This project has been in the works for more than 10 years!

http://www.google.com/mentalplex/

 

Google seems like a fun place to work!

HTML5 Voice Search for your blog! (Chrome only)

Posted by Tom Schultz on June 22, 2011 None comments
HTML5 Logo Shield

HTML5 Voice Search How To

A while ago Google added their voice search to google.com.  This feature has been around for a while on Android and proven to be quite useful.

The HTML5 drafts have begun defining the api for voice search.

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xg-htmlspeech/2011Feb/att-0020/api-draft.html

If you have Google Chrome and you’ve tried the voice search, then you might want to add it to your site!

Believe it or not, it’s really simple! I added it to this website in about 30 minutes from not knowing anything about to full implementation.

How to do it!

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head></head>
    <body>
        <script type="text/javascript">     
            function startSearch(event) {       
               document.getElementById("searchform").submit();     
            }   
        </script>
        <form action="#" method="get" id="searchform">
            <input title="Search"  type="text" name="q"  x-webkit-speech="" x-webkit-grammar="builtin:search" onwebkitspeechchange="startSearch()" />
        </form>
    </body>
</html>

More Information

http://slides.html5rocks.com/#speech-input

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml+voice/

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xg-htmlspeech/2011Feb/att-0020/api-draft.html

Google Adds Voice Search to Homepage

Posted by Tom Schultz on June 18, 2011 None comments

It appears that Google has added voice search to their homepage today.

This feature has been on Android and iPhones for quite a while now, providing nearly hands free searching to it’s users.

Google homepage updated with voice search

Podcast Episode #9 – The Giants are Evil

Posted by Tom Schultz on April 20, 2011 None comments

It’s been a long time since we made a podcast…and you can probably tell. We took extreme effort to keep the rants pointless and to have a good time so please enjoy our first podcast of 2011!

Topics!

  • Facebook being for dullards
  • Twitter is a conspiracy
  • Google is evil
The Giants are Evil [ 28:52 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Pointless Rants is now on your Android!

Posted by Tom Schultz on January 26, 2011 None comments
Pointless Rants Logo

Yeah that’s right! In case you hadn’t noticed we have an Android application!
I wrote it a while ago just to learn a little about the Android platform. It was a good learning experience and I think I can really expand it if I have the time.

I would also like to develop an iPhone and Windows Phone 7 version as well, but time and resources are limited. I have been thinking about releasing the source code for the application, so if you’re interested in developing it further let me know.  I currently have it hosted on bitbucket.org but it is a private repository.

Here’s somethings I would like to add…

  • Tabbed content for podcasts/screencasts.
  • Notification of posts/podcasts
  • Better navigation of categories and tags
  • Search

Here’s the link and QR code!

Click to download: Pointless Rants Android App

It’s very simple for now, simply an rss reader directed to the site.

I hope to expand the content of the site and bring the app along with the expansion.

That is our goal this year. Anyway, enjoy and thanks for stopping by!

Android 3.0 for the rest of us?

Posted by Tom Schultz on January 5, 2011 9 comments

Android Open Source

I’m really confused. So if someone can post a comment an explain where I’m crazy on this then please do!
So Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) was shown on some Asus tablets (http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1934980/android-honeycomb-tips-asus-tablets) and there’s some leaked music app out there (http://www.intomobile.com/2010/12/29/android-honeycomb-music-player-download/). Cool right? Well where did they get the source code for this? I don’t see it? I can’t find it? There’s no updates for the SDK that contain the 3.0 API calls?

So Asus has some kind of special deal with Google to be able to get early access to the “open” platform which is dubbed “Android”?

Now I realize that I could be way off base here because I have not built the latest code in the Android GIT repo(http://android.git.kernel.org/). *Note the big open source logo at the top of that page.

So my question is where is Honeycomb for the rest of us?

UPDATE:

It seems that many Android devices don’t play well with GPL.

http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/android_tablets/

Search Engine Wars

Posted by Tom Schultz on November 24, 2010 None comments

Search Engine

We use search engines every day, some times whether we know it or not. Ask anyone what search engines they know and Google.com will most likely be at the top of the list along with Yahoo.com and now Bing.com.

These companies make a lot of money and employ a lot of people these days(GOOG, YHOO, MSFT). They have been the kings of their hill for a while now. They have been unchallenged and some undefeated. It might be time for things to change.

Lately a lot of little search engines have been popping up, blekko.com and duckduckgo.com in this case.  I think these search engines have the same spirit that Google had when it was first starting out. Google just wanted to be a little bit better than it’s competition and when they were rejected they set off on their own. Providing users with search results that were slightly more accurate than their competition was enough to earn them the spot they’re in today.

So the question is, “How long until they are dethroned”?

That time might not be so distant in the future.

Blekko and DuckDuckGo Merge!

http://www.skrenta.com/2010/11/blekko_partners_with_duckduckg.html

These two search engines each provide some simple to use and unique features that can help users find the information that they’re looking for.

So I’m pleased to announce blekko’s first search partnership, with fellow search startupDuckDuckGo. When DuckDuckGo users search on a term which matches one of blekko’s seven auto-fired slashtag categories, DuckDuckGo users will see results from blekko. (The seven auto-fired slashtag categories are health, colleges, autos, personal finance, lyrics, recipesand hotels.

So now you can use some of blekko’s “slashtags”!

As part of this partnership Blekko users will have access to DuckDuckGo’s “Zero-Click Info” on a site-by-site basis. Zero-Click Info helps users find the most relevant information on sites and search terms without having to click on search results.

And you can use DuckDuckGo’s “Zero-Click Info” solutions!

Google has been releasing features a lot lately and it’s funny because it seems like they’ve been just throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks. If this is true then Google is in a whole lot of trouble. Because these smaller search engine companies have much less over-head and seem to care much more about their users.

I don’t think there’s been enough competition in the search engine market and I’m very glad to see duckduckgo.com and blekko.com joining forces.