Posted March 27th, 2013
by admin
Posted by Richard Gingras, Sr. Director, News & Social Products
Credibility and trust are longstanding journalistic values, and ones which we all regard as crucial attributes of a great news site. It’s difficult to be trusted when one is being paid by the subject of an article, or selling or monetizing links within an article. Google News is not a marketing service, and we consider articles that employ these types of promotional tactics to be in violation of our quality guidelines.
Please remember that like Google search, Google News takes action against sites that violate our quality guidelines. Engagement in deceptive or promotional tactics such as those described above may result in the removal of articles, or even the entire publication, from Google News.
If a site mixes news content with affiliate, promotional, advertorial, or marketing materials (for your company or another party), we strongly recommend that you separate non-news content on a different host or directory, block it from being crawled with robots.txt, or create a Google News Sitemap for your news articles only. Otherwise, if we learn of promotional content mixed with news content, we may exclude your entire publication from Google News.
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Posted March 14th, 2013
by admin
After a lot of teasing, and a lot of leaking, the Galaxy S IV is finally here. Last year’s version, the S III, remains the world’s most popular Android phone, having sold over 40 million units. Can the S IV live up to that kind of hype? Can Samsung make us feel like we’re living in the future? More »
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Posted March 14th, 2013
by admin
New gadgets. We love them. They bring excitement donin the days leading up to their launch and they give us reasons to walk up to strangers and ask them questions in hopes that they’ll let us give them a try. The same will hold true for Google Glass when it’s released. People will love on it. Eventually, it will fail.
The idea is a strong one. Wearable tech is all the rage right now and this is the closest one can get to having bionic, Terminator-style eyes. It will be reviewed and many bloggers will call it a life-changing, pseudo-religious experience, something that any geek with true nerd cred needs to have on their face at nearly all times. Over time, it will turn out to be a fad. Here’s why:
They aren’t very useful after the first week
Most of the things that will be done by users will be done in the first week after purchase. They’ll need to try this, try that, and try everything else that you can do with Glass, but then it simply becomes a novelty. You can’t play Angry Birds on it. You won’t be able to text, at least not in the traditional way. Streaming videos to an inch in front of your face or getting augmented reality versions of what’s in front of you will be first-week lookatme moments, then they will rarely be used.
The camera may be useful indefinitely. That all depends on the quality, ease of storage, shakiness, and other factors. Otherwise, the rest is all for show.
They’re a little too obnoxious
After several years of being in circulation, people still look like morons when they wear their bluetooth headset while not on a call. Some say they look like morons when they are on a call.
This won’t be any different. It may end up being worse. Google Glass will score big points at parties but will stand out like a sore thumb everywhere else just as bluetooth headsets once did. Once people become used to the headsets, they still won’t be very accepted. If anything, they’ll be shunned even more than bluetooth.
People wearing them will not be trusted by their peers
Everyone knows a prankster who post unflattering pictures and videos of their friends taken with a smartphone. That’s annoying, but at least you know what to watch for when they’re around. They can’t just walk around nonchalantly with nothing in their hand capturing embarrassing moments at the bar the way they’ll be able to do with Google Glass.
Even at the office, while people are talking badly about their jobs or bosses, nobody will be able to trust Mr Google Glass Wearing Guy. You never know when he’s recording you, after all.
They’re most useful where there’s limited internet
It’s great to be able to stream videos to your eyeballs, but the points when they could be most useful for this and other purposes are times when there’s no WiFi. Mobile data plans are getting more strict and it’s hard to imagine streaming video or recording videos from a cellular connection without having s0me challenges with usage.
Glass may be able to store data on mobile devices through bluetooth for upload when WiFi is available, but that sort of takes the fun out of it, doesn’t it?
They can’t replace anything
They aren’t a phone. In fact, they need a phone to work best. They aren’t going to replace iPods or iPads. They may replace a digital camera, but technically the phone already did that.
In essence, they’re an add-on product. They’re going to be just another gadget to buy, keep safe, and maintain. Other devices like smartphones and tablets helped to replace something else, but Google Glass does not.
Something better will come along
Whatever “it” is, it’s going to be epic. Technology is moving too quickly to believe that Google Glass is going to be cutting edge technology for longer than a year or two.
They simply don’t have anywhere to go with them. They will need to be replaced rather than improved and because they are a luxury item, there won’t be a ton of people who will be willing to upgrade to the next variation of Glass, whatever it may be. No, they’ll look at the next shiny object that comes along that’s completely different from Glass, at which time I’ll probably write an article similar to this one about that piece of technology.
The first tragic use of Glass will make them uncool
Perhaps it’s not a good thing that I can think of a dozen ways this can be used negatively. They’re ideal for documenting horrific crimes. They can be useful in committing others. I simply don’t want to go into the graphic details because I don’t want to give any sickos or criminals ideas, but if you think hard enough about it you can probably come up with something nefarious that could be perpetrated using Google Glass.
It could be something unintentional like a fatal accident indirectly caused by someone using the hands free components of Google Glass. Distracted driving can happen even when both hands are on the wheel. If there’s something on your face taking your attention away from the road, bad things can happen. Unfortunately, it’s not like cell phone use that can be witnessed while passing law enforcement. You don’t have to have your hand up to your face to operate Google Glass, so trying to discourage its use by writing tickets isn’t feasible. Some would say that they could be disconnected when traveling at a speed that indicated car travel, but then passengers would be hampered.
* * *
Google Glass will likely be successful at first. It may continue. It’s likely going to fail. Then, we’ll get to wait for the iWatch.
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Posted March 14th, 2013
by admin
Google has pulled the popular Adblock Plus and other ad-blocking apps from the Google Play store.
To be clear, that means Adblock Plus and its ilk are no longer available for Android users. So far nothing has changed in the Chrome Web Store, which still hosts plenty of ad-blocking add-ons for Google’s web browser.
The move shouldn’t be surprising given that ad-blocking software cuts into Google’s bottom line, though that’s not exactly why Google says the apps were removed. The company says that such apps violate the Play Store’s terms of service, specifically that they cause “interference with another service or product in an unauthorized manner.”
Naturally if you’ve already installed AdBlock Plus — or any other affected ad-blocking app — it will continue to work, though there will be no more updates. For that reason, Wladimir Palant, creator of AdBlock Plus, suggests users “install our next release from our website once it is out.”
Palant calls the move “surprising” and wonders if it suggests “a course change at Google.” It doesn’t seem particularly surprising to me, but Palant’s thoughts on all the “for rooted phones only” apps currently available in Play seem well-founded:
Until recently the main distinction between Android and iPhone was that Android allowed you to install any app as long as it wasn’t malicious (meaning that it’s obvious what the app does). Google Play still allows apps stating “for rooted phones only” but I wonder whether these are next on the list to be removed — each of them performs “unauthorized actions”.
What’s really surprising is that Google ever allowed these apps in the first place.
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Posted March 13th, 2013
by admin
The Internet serves as a hub of the world, providing entertainment, connection, and goods and services. By 2015, online retail is expected to be worth $279 billion. In United States, while Internet is an important resource, it’s not readily accessible to everyone.
Ten percent of Americans don’t have access to basic broadband because of where they live and six-tenths of poor people don’t have wired Internet. Much of this has to do with lack of competition between companies that not only allows them to ignore portions of the population, but to also drive up prices without consequence.
In this infographic, InternetProviders.com explores Internet around the world and ways in which the U.S. can step it up to mend a broken communication system.
Why American Internet is Lagging
American Internet is Lagging – An infographic by the team at InternetProviders.com
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