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Google Glass faces foggy future over privacy concerns – Vancouver Sun – Vancouver Sun

admin — Sat, 18 May 2013 12:00:35 +0000

At first glance it looks like Phil Wu is just another guy wearing glasses. But take a second look and you realize there’s something missing – lenses.

Instead, projected out from the frames and in the top of Wu’s field of vision is what looks like a tiny glass rectangle. It’s Google Glass.

Welcome to the world of wearable computers, where glasses can transport you to a world of augmented reality and wristwatches do a lot more than tell time. T-shirts? They could be monitoring your heartbeat.

“OK Glass, take a picture,” says Wu, a local software developer, and the tiny glass lights up.

And instantly, the photo of your surprised face is broadcast for the world to see on Twitter. When you put Glass on and adjust the screen, you have to look up a little to decipher what’s on it. Even though it seems impossibly tiny, you can read messages, look at photos, scroll through posts and carry out other functions. There’s even an app called Winky that lets you take a photo by winking.

At the forefront of this trend in wearable computers is digital behemoth Google, which has persuaded developers and early adopters to shell out $1,500 (plus tax) to be among the first to try out Google Glass. Glass is a wearable computer that you don like a pair of glasses but is actually a head-mounted display delivering all the power of a smartphone or tablet computer – and more.

And the technology isn’t just the purview of giant corporations such as Google. Vancouver’s Recon Instruments showed off its new Recon Jet, a wearable computer that’s incorporated into a pair of polarized sunglasses, at Google’s annual developers’ conference this week. Recon had its start as a student project at the University of B.C.

The heads-up display interactive glasses have a high-resolution widescreen and a list of smartphone and tablet-like features – a dual-core processor, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, a high-definition video and still camera, and sensors that can measure everything from temperature to the gradient of the hill that you may be cycling on. Pebble, another wearable computer, is a smartwatch that launched with a $10-million Kickstarter project – the most successful Kickstarter initiative in the online fundraiser’s history. It was the brainchild of Eric Migicovsky, a graduate of Vancouver’s Sir Winston Churchill Secondary and the University of Waterloo, and this week raised $15 million in Series A funding.

Wearable computer technology, once the stuff of space-age movies, isn’t debuting without debate. Even as Google distributes the first run of its Google Glass, a backlash over privacy concerns is seeing movie theatres, casinos and even coffee shops banning the controversial Glass.

The technology is being closely watched by privacy commissioners in Canada.

Elizabeth Denham, British Columbia’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, said unlike smartphones that have cameras, head-mounted cameras such as Glass and Recon’s Jet make it easier to take photos or videos of people without their knowledge. And once the photo or video is taken, it can be broadcast to the world over the Internet.

Song Skipping Reportedly The Cause Of Halt In iRadio Negotiations – AppAdvice

admin — Sat, 18 May 2013 12:00:33 +0000

Recently, a report indicated that Apple’s anticipated “iRadio” music service could be delayed, since the product aims to deviate from a standard subscription-based model and rather seeks to offer users aspects of an on-demand-style experience. According to CNET, however, it would appear that the specific issues encountered lie between Apple and Sony Music, and concern “the economics of skipping songs.”

The website reports:

Apple and Sony Music, the world’s second-largest music label, are still trying to hammer out details over how much Apple would pay for songs that people listen to a fraction of and then skip, according to people familiar with the negotiations. There could be other points of contention as well.

Apple’s streaming music service, which most closely resembles Internet radio leader Pandora, has some features built into it that give users added control, such as the ability to rewind a song and skip to the next after listening to a portion of it, sources say.

Pandora, however, while allowing users to skip songs, limits this to 12 skips per day, and pays full royalties for each skipped track. If Apple is going to allow iRadio users to bypass, rewind, or repeat songs, it would appear that a similar agreement with labels will need to be made, and that an appropriate price will have to be paid.

Unfortunately, until such a deal is struck, iRadio is indeed going to be on hold, and a summer launch therefore appears less likely with each passing day. From what we understand, Apple has signed a deal with Universal Music Group, and is close to reaching an agreement with Warner Music Group.

Sony, however, is presently holding out.

We’ll let you know if the situation changes. In the meantime, see our further iRadio related news articles: Apple’s Streaming Preview Of Daft Punk’s New Album Leads To Free Download, Apple’s “iRadio” Is So Revolutionary Which Is Why It Could Be Delayed, and Google Launches A Streaming Music Service, Leaving Apple In The Dust.

Huge Rock Crashes Into Moon, Sparks Giant Explosion – Space.com

admin — Sat, 18 May 2013 12:00:30 +0000

This artist’s illustration shows a meteor crashing into the surface of the moon. Scientists say hundreds of space rocks impact the lunar surface every year.
CREDIT: NASA

The moon has a new hole on its surface thanks to a boulder that slammed into it in March, creating the biggest explosion scientists have seen on the moon since they started monitoring it.

The meteorite crashed on March 17, slamming into the lunar surface at a mind-boggling 56,000 mph (90,000 kph) and creating a new crater 65 feet wide (20 meters). The crash sparked a bright flash of light that would have been visible to anyone looking at the moon at the time with the naked eye, NASA scientists say.

“On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in Mare Imbrium,” Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office said in a statement. “It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we’ve ever seen before.” [The Greatest Lunar Crashes Ever]

NASA astronomers have been monitoring the moon for lunar meteor impacts for the past eight years, and haven’t seen anything this powerful before.

Scientists didn’t see the impact occur in real time. It was only when Ron Suggs, an analyst at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., reviewed a video of the bright moon crash recorded by one of the moon monitoring program’s 14-inch telescopes that the event was discovered.

“It jumped right out at me, it was so bright,” Suggs said.

Scientists deduced the rock had been roughly 1-foot-wide (between 0.3 to 0.4 meters) and weighted about 88 lbs (40 kg).The explosion it created was as powerful as 5 tons of TNT, NASA scientists said.

When researchers looked back at their records from March, they found that the moon meteor might not have been an isolated event.

“On the night of March 17, NASA and University of Western Ontario all-sky cameras picked up an unusual number of deep-penetrating meteors right here on Earth,” Cooke said. “These fireballs were traveling along nearly identical orbits between Earth and the asteroid belt.”

Though Earth’s atmosphere protected our planet’s surface from being hit by these meteors, the moon has no such luck. Its lack of an atmosphere exposes it to all incoming space rocks, and the NASA monitoring program has spotted more than 300 meteor strikes that reached its surface since 2005.

Part of the motivation for the program is NASA’s eventual intent to send astronauts back to the moon. When they arrive, they’ll need to know how often meteors impact the surface, and whether certain parts of the year, coinciding with the moon’s passage through crowded bits of the solar system, pose special dangers.

“We’ll be keeping an eye out for signs of a repeat performance next year when the Earth-Moon system passes through the same region of space,” Cooke said. “Meanwhile, our analysis of the March 17th event continues.”

The scientists also hope to use NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to photograph the impact site to learn more about how the crash occurred.

Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

Future Firefox takes tougher stance on mixed content – CNET

admin — Sat, 18 May 2013 12:00:29 +0000

Mixed content blocking is coming to Firefox.

(Credit:
Mozilla)

Mozilla is taking steps to lock down mixed content Web sites for Firefox in an update Friday to Firefox 23 Aurora.

In
Firefox 23 Aurora, the pre-beta version of the browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Mozilla will block by default mixed active content. Mixed content is a term that refers to a Web site secured with HTTPS that loads some of its content, such as images or scripts, from standard HTTP sources, and can lead to eavesdroppers and man-in-the-middle attacks.

Mixed active content describes things like scripts because they can actively change how you interact with the site. Mixed passive content, such as images, just sits there in most cases.

The mixed content blocker will give people a choice to disable it on a per-site basis, and load the potentially dangerous content. To disable it or learn more about the controls for a specific site, you can click on a shield that will appear on the left side of the location bar.

The browser also will introduce nine new Web developer tools, including a network monitor; a remote style editor for helping test the Web on mobile devices; an Options panel for turning tools on or off; the beginnings of SourceMap support for the Debugger tool; a Variables View for all tools; a Browser Console to replace the Error Console; an AppCache command for developers working with offline content; Web Console support in the Debugger Frame; and the ability to debug multiple tabs simultaneously.

Firefox 23 is expected to graduate to the stable version of the browser in about 12 weeks.

Love and hate: The New Google+ look – ZDNet

admin — Sat, 18 May 2013 12:00:27 +0000

A year after Google+’s last remake, Google decided to give Google+ a radical new look and feel. Some users love it, some hate it, but no one’s indifferent to it.

As Chis Voss, social media expert points out, the new Google+ looks a lot like Pinterest.

In 2013, Google+ came into its own when it became the world’s second most popular social network. That didn’t stop Google however from announcing more than 41 major changes at Google I/O. These weren’t small, under-the-hood changes. One, the shift from a single content column to Google Now style “cards” in two or three columns with large images that take up the entire width of the display, has totally transformed the interface.

Gallery: The brighter, more colorful Google+

Some people loved this change. Harry McCracken, noted technology journalist wrote in Time magazine, “The service, which was already pretty darn slick, is now among the most attractive and engaging web apps I’ve ever seen.” The New Yorker’s new technology associate editor Matt Buchanan wrote, “The mobile version of Plus, which has used cards for a few months, by contrast, feels ebullient and rich, like it was inspired by beautiful magazines, if magazines were also living, breathing entities.”

So much for the adoration. Others, such as Chris Voss a social media expert and CEO of Strategix One Consulting, look at the new Google+ and see the image-oriented Pinterest social network. Not that’s there’s anything wrong with that. Still others find it far too busy and annoying.

Me? I found it distracting at first, but I’m getting to like it. If you can’t stand it, you can shift back to a look that’s something like the old interface. You do this by going to Google+ settings and scrolling down to the Accessibility radio box. There, check “Change the presentation of some pages to work better with screen readers and other assistive tools,” and you’ll have the new one column look. It is not, I repeat not, a real replacement for the old look.

Linus Torvalds is right. The closer you look at Google+’s new default font, the uglier it looks.

There is, however, another problem: Google+’s fonts. As Linus Torvalds, founder of Linux and a Google+ user, put it, “This is the fuzziest font I have ever seen. Maybe it’s the WOFF [Web Open Font Format] rasterizer in Chrome that could suck dead baby donkeys through a straw?” Torvalds is right. The fonts are ugly as sin. Hopefully Google will get them fixed soon.

The other major change is that Google+ Hangouts hasn’t changed that much. What has changed is that it brings group video conferencing to Android and Apple iOS smartphones and tablets. That’s good. But, it also replaced Google Chats, a similar Google program. That’s bad, according to some annoyed Google Chat users, who didn’t necessarily want their Google+ colleagues to be able to “phone” them. Fortunately, there are ways to adjust your Google+ circles to control who can “call” you.

Finally, in addition to Google+ Circles, where you select which people see which of your posts, and Google+ Communities, which are online groups set up for a specific interest, Google+ has now embraced Twitter’s favorite topic organizing feature, the hashtag.

You, however, don’t have to assign hashtags to a story. Google does it for you. So, for example, if I write a story about Linux, Google will automatically add a Linux hashtag to it. Users, for their part, can now browse related content by clicking on a post with a particular topic. Since it’s often hard to know what hashtag to use–e.g. Linux, Ubuntu, open source?–having the system handle it for you if you don’t want to do it manually is a nice feature.

At first, I found the new Google+ interface to be more distracting than useful. That said, even as I was double-checking my facts as I wrote this story I found myself liking it more and more. If you’re a long-time Google+ user, I urge you to give it a chance before writing it off. If you haven’t used Google+ before, it’s high-time you did.

Related Stories:

Bisnis Waralaba Menggeliat, Pebisnis Baru Bermunculan – Suara Merdeka – Suara Merdeka CyberNews

admin — Sat, 18 May 2013 12:00:24 +0000

–>

SEMARANG, suaramerdeka.com - Bisnis waralaba akan terus menggeliat di tahun ini. Hal ini ditandai makin banyaknya pelaku bisnis baru setiap tahunnya. Tahun ini pertumbuhan bisnis waralaba dipastikan naik 2% dibanding tahun lalu.

Ketua Asosiasi Franchise Indonesia (AFI), Anang Sukandar mengungkapkan, kota Semarang menjadi salah satu kota di Jawa Tengah yang potensial untuk bisnis franchise. Makin bertumbuhnya bisnis waralaba di Semarang menjadikan para investor waralaba melirik mengembangkan investasinya di kota lumpia ini. Apalagi, menghadapi ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) 2015, sejumlah waralaba asing akan bermunculan di Indonesia. Bertumbuhnya bisnis waralaba di kota Semarang dipastikan menjadi pasar empuk bagi waralaba asing.

Menurut dia, setiap tahun jumlah usaha waralaba terus bertambah. Sebagai gambaran, pada 2012 waralaba lokal masih berjumlah 1.500 unit usaha, termasuk business opportunity (BO). Namun tahun ini, ia memperkirakan jumlahnya sudah mencapai 1.700 unit-2.000 unit usaha. Sedang, jumlah franchise asing di Indonesia pada 2012 lalu sebanyak 350 unit dan sampai saat ini sudah lebih dari 400 unit.

”Tingkat pertumbuhan jumlah waralaba asing mencapai 6%-7% per tahun melampaui pertumbuhan waralaba lokal yang hanya 2%. ”,” ujarnya saat Info Franchise & Business Concept (IFBC) 2013 di Gedung Wanita Semarang, Jumat (17/5).

Meningkatnya bisnis waralaba bisa dilihat selama Info Franchise & Business Concept (IFBC) kemarin. Sebanyak 50 peserta menawarkan konsep bisnis waralaba kepada calon investor. Antara lain, bisnis waralaba dari bidang kuliner seperti Asussy Burger, Dgoen Aneka Rasa, Angkringan SK, Lovelly Jello. Serta, bidang usaha travel, TX Travel, Asindo dan masih banyak lagi.

Pameran yang digelar selama tiga hari itu ditargetkan dapat menginspirasi masyarakat untuk membuka peluang usaha meskipun dana mereka terbatas. Mereka bisa melihat beragam bisnis menjanjikan dengan investasi terjangkau mulai di bawah Rp 10 juta hingga ratusan juta rupiah.

Untuk mempermudah pengunjung yang berniat membuka bisnis waralaba, Anang berpesan untuk terlebih dahulu mengetahui seluk beluk bisnis waralaba. Kapan usaha pengusaha itu berdiri, kapan status usaha mereka menjadi waralaba, apa keunikan waralabanya, di mana prototipe waralaba itu bisa dijumpai, dan apa waralaba tersebut dapat dijadikan contoh bagi calon mitranya.

Franchise Senior Manager PT Indomarco Prismatama (Indomaret), Gan Budi Santosa mengatakan, bisnis waralaba ke depan masih akan menjanjikan. Bisnis ini bakal terus berkembang dan tidak ada matinya utamanya di wilayah Jateng. Sejak 2003 lalu jumlah unit usaha Indomaret sudah mencapai 400 toko. Setiap tahunnya jumlah investor Indomaret terus bertambah 20%-30%.

Pada pameran selama tiga hari ini, ia menargetkan 100 investor akan menjadi pelaku usaha franchise. ”Masih ada potensi di wilayah Jateng untuk dikembangkan. Tahun ini kami menargetkan membuka 250 toko lagi dengan membidik pengusaha atau UKM pedagang kelontong untuk bergabung dengan Indomaret,” katanya.

(
Fista Novianti / CN19 / SMNetwork )

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Coming soon: An Android gadget that could unleash data for Kenyan farmers – GigaOM

admin — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:00:21 +0000

Over the past four years as Jason Aramburu sold kilns, which turn plant waste into bio charcoal, to Kenyan farmers, he became something of an expert on one of the key things that Kenyan farmers lack: data. “There’s very little data anywhere,” says Aramburu, founder and CEO of startup Re:char, over a breakfast interview on Thursday, as Re:char chief technology and resident Maker Luke Iseman nods in agreement.

For example, rural Kenyan farmers can easily spend 30 percent of their income on fertilizer, but 80 percent of that fertilizer can be wasted because there is little data collected about the best places and times to use it. The lack of info isn’t just from the farmer’s perspective. Aramburu says when he met the CEO of a major fertilizer company recently, he asked him what he knew about his customers — his response: “very little.”

Re:char CTO Luke Iseman (L) and founder/CEO Jason Aramburu (R) showing off an early prototype of SoilIQ

A soil data cloud in the sky

The two young entrepreneurs latest project emerged from this black hole of information. Working within French telco giant Orange’s first accelerator program, called Orange Fab, Re:char plans to build a $5 plug-in device, called SoilIQ, for an Android phone that can read the moisture levels in soil. During our interview, Iseman takes a very early prototype of the device out of a pouch and shows me how it plugs into the Android phone and taps into the phone’s computing power to detect moisture levels between two screws.

Down the road such a gadget could be developed to pick up other soil data, like fertilizer-level readings. Iseman, an avid gardener, schools me on NPK — nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium — which he says are the holy grail of fertilizer readings. When SoilIQ is a commercial product, farmers could buy the gadget to take these types of readings, and enhance their farming productivity and the efficiency of their fertilizer use.

But the real value of such a system will likely be in the data collection, and the data analytics and services. The hourly and daily micro readings, which are coded with GPS data, could be used to create a cloud-based location data map of the quality and details of the land. This information could be used to launch data-focused services for both farmers, fertilizers companies, government groups, and others.

Re:char envisions using the data to launch a subscription service for farmers that can alert the farmers to the most fertile land, or even if there’s the danger of crop disease anywhere in the region (maize rot is a huge problem in rural Kenya). Fertilizer companies could use such data to offer better products to farmers, and potentially learn more about the end farmer customer (fertilizer can change hands ten times in Kenya until it reaches the person who will use it, says Aramburu).

Such land data could even be valuable outside of the farming communities. A massive data soil map in the cloud could help determine things like land values, or land ownership issues.

SoilIQ is part internet of things, part sustainability, and part data analytics. The entrepreneurs are actually very focused on developing tools that encourage the more efficient use of resources, which could (and should in my opinion) be the next-generation of cleantech focus.

The core concept also reminds me of what Safecast has been trying to do with its grass roots nuclear radiation sensors and data mapping in Japan. Safecast is bringing that concept to air pollution in L.A., too.

Orange interest

For telco Orange, which has a substantial presence in Kenya, such a system could help them increase mobile data use among customers. The Android devices obviously send the data to the cloud over the cellular networks. And Android phones — as Google announced this week at Google.io — are being used by 900 million people globally.

But potentially even more important is the branding involved. As Orange’s Executive Director of Business Services, Vivek Badrinath, told me in an interview at the Orange Fab event on Monday night, the mobile phone is often times the first branded product that a customer in a developing country has. That brand in turn has a unique ability to transition into offering core services, like mobile banking, and credit.

Orange has a mobile payment system, Orange Money, that is growing nicely and Re:char could plug into it for its planned services. And if SoilIQ becomes a killer app for the bottom of the pyramid, Orange would have a key position in it. Orange is interested enough in Re:char’s new idea that it not only brought the company into its accelerator program, but is investing in its angel round.

Re:char hopes to close an angel round by the end of the program, and later this year raise a series A round. By the end of the three months, Re:char also plans to have its soil moisture-reading gadget developed enough to move it into production.

If you’re a backyard composter or gardener — like Re:charge CTO Iseman — you’re probably wondering if you can get your hands on SoilIQ one day. Aramburu and Iseman tell me that they’d like to make it available in the U.S., too, so the gardening hobbyist could collect their own data.

Clearly, the team is in the very early stages of making SoilIQ, so a lot of their plans will hinge on these next few months. They plan to keep running the kiln bio charcoal business, and think SoilIQ could even help grow that business, too. They also might split the businesses in two down the road.

Ultimately if they can deliver a simple, easy to use, and cheap device, and convince Kenyan farmers to start using it, they could be on their way to unleashing data from Kenya’s rural landscape.

Google didn’t deliver the gadget goods at I/O, so what’s its game? – Digital Trends

admin — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:00:18 +0000

Although Google is famed for its Nexus phones and tablets, its roots are in software, and this year at Google I/O it returned to them in a big way. The three-hour-plus Google I/O keynote presentation was almost devoid of new device announcements, save for the three minutes spent talking about the Nexus-like Samsung Galaxy S4. The disappointment many of us are feeling is partially Google’s own fault, as last year’s extravaganza – complete with skydiving Glass-wearers and the introduction of the Nexus 7 tablet – fooled us into thinking this year’s show could be even greater. It seems we collectively chose to ignore the warnings it would be all about the developers this time around, but few were prepared for such a drastic switch.

New services such as All Access music and Google Play games, plus updates to Maps, Google Now, and Google+ all took precedence over new devices, as did niche appeal developer tools such as app translation services, low-power location modes and Android Studio. Sure, Google has a bewildering portfolio of tools, software and devices, so it must be difficult to decide which will be given time to shine during an event as high-profile as Google I/O. However, we’re talking about three and a half hours here, not a Nokia-swift 40 minutes.

It’s not like Google doesn’t have any hardware to talk about

As more software was paraded in front of us, the glaring absence of any exciting new devices became more noticeable. Products we’d been all excited about became far off dreams. Granted, a smartwatch, the Nexus 5, and the Nexus 11 tablet were always outside chances; but the one thing most of us were banking on being there, an updated Nexus 7 tablet, was also a no-show. This was a genuine surprise, as leaving aside the rumors and analyst predictions about it, the tablet is now a year old, and almost every manufacturer out there updates its products at least every 12-months or so. The Nexus 7 may still be a good little tablet, but it’s far from the cheapest anymore, and new challengers are coming out regularly enough to turn consumers’ heads.

Products we’d been all excited about became far off dreams.

Then there are the phones Google is working on with its new-best-friend Motorola. Their existence isn’t speculation either. We know Google is busy working with Motorola on some new smartphones because Google has told us. Celebrating a working partnership by showing the fruits of its labor sounds like perfect fodder for Google I/O, but no such luck. Google Glass, currently the hottest piece of unreleased tech on the planet, was also absent. It’s an instant crowd-pleaser, and any details at all – an app demo, feedback from Explorers, anything – would have been lapped up. And no, quips about tech pundit and renowned Glasshole Robert Scoble’s shower pic don’t count.

It could be part of Google’s master plan…

While we all waited for the big gadget reveal which never came, it was also all too easy to forget the one big piece of software Google didn’t talk about: the next version of Android. The lack of an Android update at I/O is incredibly significant. For the first time in ages, we’re leaving the event still using the same version of Android we were when we went in. Google’s Android update schedule has always been haphazard, but I/O usually serves us a luscious slice of Android confectionery on which to munch. Android’s absence is the most probable cause of our new gadget withdrawal symptoms though, as the two are inextricably linked; so without a new operating system to install on new hardware, what would be the point of any announcements?

We know Google has plenty of cool new devices in the works that it didn’t want to chat about. Apparently, it’s become strategically advantageous for it to withhold Android. What game is it playing?

For the first time in a few years, it seems Google I/O has been reclaimed by the developers, and because of this, Google looks to capitalizing on the opportunity to put on another show at a later date, aimed this time at us, the consumers. It’s hardly a stretch, as putting the announcement of a new version of Android – be it 4.3 Jelly Bean or 5.0 Key Lime Pie – together with a range of exciting updated devices, all wrapped up in a spectacular event, really does make perfect sense.

So when could this take place? How about just after summer, around September perhaps? By this time, Android 5.0 could be ready, and almost the entire Nexus range will be ripe for updating, leaving an all-new Motorola X Phone as the icing on the cake. It would also be strategically well-timed, as Apple has promised it’s got some “amazing” products planned for – shock – about the same time. While Google I/O didn’t deliver the gadget goods, it may pave the way for a monumental event which will.

First Wave of Google Glass Apps Revealed – Wired

admin — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:00:17 +0000

A wave of big-name apps are getting Glass functionality. Photo: Alex Washburn/Wired

If you thought Glass’ abilities were limited to documenting your trips to the shower, think again. At Google’s annual I/O developer conference Thursday, the company announced the first big wave of third-party Glass apps, dubbed Glassware.

Those who own the stylishly questionable headgear will soon be able to get breaking news updates from CNN, access notes and reminders from Evernote, read social media posts from Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, and get fashion tips from Elle, according to The New York Times.

Glass also gets its first game, an appropriately awkward title called Ice Breaker. In it, you receive a notification when another Ice Breaker player is nearby so you can introduce yourselves, take pictures of one another, and then rate your conversation. Like we said: awkward.

With this next wave of Glassware, as the apps are collectively called, users will also be able to compose tweets via voice, send photos to Facebook, and read their favorite sections of Elle magazine (can’t wait for the sidewalk crashes caused by this type of functionality).

Path and The New York Times are currently the only third-party apps available for Glass wearers. Other built-in functions include directions, search, snapping photos or videos, and relaying messages from your phone.

Welcome to Google Island – Wired

admin — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:00:13 +0000

Google IO attendees visit Google’s virtual island Photo: Alex Washburn/Wired

I awoke aboard a boat, just before daybreak, which was weird. The last thing I remembered was being in San Francisco’s Moscone Center, wrapping up a four-hour Google I/O keynote liveblogging session. My last recollection was of Google CEO Larry Page taking questions from the audience and promoting a vision of a utopia where society could be free to innovate and experiment, unencumbered by government regulations or social norms.

“I think as technologists we should have some safe places where we can try out some new things and figure out,” he had said. “What is the effect on society? What’s the effect on people? Without having to deploy it into the normal world.”

I realized I was the only one aboard, and the boat was driving itself.

It hit the shore at first light, approaching from a perfect angle that allowed the sun to just peek out over the back of the island. I hopped over the side, and watched as the boat slowly put itself into reverse, turned, and headed back out to sea.

“Hello.”

The soft, froggy voice startled me. I turned around to face an approaching figure. It was Larry Page, naked, save for a pair of eyeglasses.

“Welcome to Google Island. I hope my nudity doesn’t bother you. We’re completely committed to openness here. Search history. Health data. Your genetic blueprint. One way to express this is by removing clothes to foster experimentation. It’s something I learned at Burning Man,” he said. “Here, drink this. You’re slightly dehydrated, and your blood sugar is low. This is a blend of water, electrolytes, and glucose.”

I was taken aback. “How did you…” I began, but he was already answering me before I could finish my question.

“As soon as you hit Google’s territorial waters, you came under our jurisdiction, our terms of service. Our laws–or lack thereof–apply here. By boarding our self-driving boat you granted us the right to all feedback you provide during your journey. This includes the chemical composition of your sweat. Remember when I said at I/O that maybe we should set aside some small part of the world where people could experiment freely and examine the effects? I wasn’t speaking theoretically. This place exists. We built it.”

I was thirsty, so I drank the electrolyte solution down. “This is delicious,” I replied.

“I know,” he replied. “It also has thousands of micro sensors which are now swarming through your blood stream.”

“What… ” I stammered.

“Your prostate is enlarged. Let’s go hangout now. There’s some really great music I’d like to recommend to you.”

We walked across the sand to a small gazebo, shaded by palms, where the beach met the forest. Two comfortable chairs faced the ocean. I watched the boat make its way towards the horizon, and noticed something odd on the beach.

“Larry, there’s only one set of footprints. How did…”

“You are with my Google Being. I’m not physically here, but I am present. Unified logins let us get to know our audience in ways we never could before. They gave us their locations so that we might better tell them if it was raining outside. They told us where they lived and where they wanted to go so that we could deliver a more immersive map that better anticipated what they wanted to do–it let us very literally tell people what they should do today. As people began to see how very useful Google Now was, they began to give us even more information. They told us to dig through their e-mail for their boarding passes–Imagine if you had to find it on your own!–they finally gave us permission to track and store their search and web history so that we could give them better and better Cards. And then there is the imaging. They gave us tens of thousands of pictures of themselves so that we could pick the best ones–yes we appealed to their vanity to do this: We’ll make you look better and assure you present a smiling, wrinkle-free face to the world–but it allowed us to also stitch together three-dimensional representations. Hangout chats let us know who everybody’s friends were, and what they had to say to them. Verbal searches gave us our users’ voices. These were intermediary steps. But it let us know where people were at all times, what they thought, what they said, and of course how they looked. Sure, Google Now could tell you what to do. But Google Being will literally do it for you.

“My Google Being anticipates everything I would think, everything I would want to say or do or feel,” Larry explained. “Everywhere I would go. Years of research have gone into this. It is in every way the same as me. So much so that my physical form is no longer necessary. It was just getting in the way, so we removed it. Keep in mind that for now at least, Google Being is just a developer product.”

Larry Page at Google I/O 2013. Photo: Alex Washburn / Wired

The Being was flawless. Utterly human. The three dimensional image, he tells me, was automatically stitched together from millions of photos. Proprietary algorithms ensure that it ages appropriately over time, although it will never wrinkle, he tells me, thanks to an automatic skin softening feature.

There was a sudden puff of smoke and a bang. I winced and found myself staring a person whose skin appeared to be inside out. The thing made a muffled noise that sounded vaguely like “moh jit” and vanished in another cloud of oily smoke. Larry waved his hand at the apparition.

“Don’t worry. That’s just Sergei experimenting with teleportation, his latest X project. Google X is focused on atoms, not bits. Sergei’s having a great time doing that. Also, it keeps him out of my hair. Shall we?”

A car arrived, and we got in the back seat. There were actually no front seats, or steering wheel, or front window, or any of the usual navigation systems. It drove us towards the island’s center, as Larry continued to explain my new surroundings to me.

“We learned so much about regulation with Google Health. It turns out, the government has rules about health records, and that people care about these rules for some reason. So we began looking around for ways to avoid regulation. For example, government regulation meant it was much easier to experiment with white space in Kenya than in the United States. So we started thinking: What if the entire world looked more like Kenya? Or, even better, Somalia? Places where there are no laws. We haven’t adapted mechanisms to deal with some of our old institutions like the law. We aren’t keeping up with the rate of change we caused through technology. If you look at the laws we have, they’re very old. A law can’t be right if it’s 50 years old. Like, it’s before the Internet. Here, put on these glasses.”

I did, and suddenly, my vision was filled with tentacle porn.

“Go ahead, watch” said Page’s Being. “I won’t judge you, I never have. I merely document, filter and suggest. Based on your history, we know you are interested in cephalopods. This is just a new direction. Enjoy yourself.”

“But I just wanted to learn more after visiting the aquarium! I don’t want this,” I stammered, removing the glasses.

“Sure you do, you just aren’t aware of that yet. For many years now, we’ve looked at everything you’ve looked at online. Everything. We know what you want, and when you want it, down to the time of day. Why wait for you to request it? And in fact, why wait for you to discover that you even want to request it? We can just serve it to you.”

The car stopped, and we got out on an airstrip. Tens of thousands of drones sat on the tarmac. Possibly hundreds of thousands. All of them equipped with cameras.

“You’ve heard about our fleet of planes,” said Page’s Being. “That was just a start. What we needed to effectively see everything, everywhere, at once, was a complete air force. So we built one. You are wondering why they aren’t in the air, I know. It’s because of this.”

He opened his hand and dozens of robotic bugs crawled out and swarmed over his arm and body.

“These are Google Spiders. They’ve crawled the entire island, and now we’re ready to release them globally. We’re sending them everywhere, so that we can make a 3D representation of the entire planet, and everyone on it. We aren’t just going to recreate the planet, though–we’re going to make it better.”

“Governments are too focused on democracy and rule of law. On Google Island, we’ve found those things to be distractions. If democracy worked so well, if a majority public opinion made something right, we would still have Jim Crow laws and Google Reader. We believe we can fix the world’s problems with better math. We can tear down the old and rebuild it with the new. Imagine Minecraft. Now imagine it photorealistic, and now imagine yourself living there, or at least, your Google Being living there. We already have the information. All we need is an invitation. This is the inevitable and logical end point of Google Island: a new Google Earth.”

And I realized I believed him. I believed in him, even. Sure, he’s a weird guy living in his own world. But what vision! And I wanted Google to make my world look like its own. And I wanted to give it all my information, about everything in my life, even my most private shameful thoughts.

I put the glasses back on, and took off my pants. We stood, naked, before each other with no secrets, no rules, and no shame. And I knew I never wanted to leave Google Island. Even if I could.