The future of casual gaming? I feel very very sorry for Nintendo.
25 Nov 2010, 14:03
25 Nov 2010, 13:35
#“Wantsies - Angry Birds on the Advent Vega Android Tablet”
via youtube.com
This is just the standard Angry Birds, auto-scaled. Initial reports on the Vega are good. Narrow viewing angle on the screen seems to be the main complaint (and no access to the Marketplace). See lots more views on Modaco: http://android.modaco.com/content/advent-vega-vega-modaco-com/323871/got-your...
22 Nov 2010, 10:44
#“Genus Aves Iratus (Angry Birds)”
21 Nov 2010, 15:08
#“Loo Books”
- My October Loo Book was Mark Kermode's "It's Only a Movie"
- My November one was the book accompaniment to the movie "Food Inc"
- My December one will be Gladwell's "What The Dog Saw"
Any other Loo Book recommendations for me?
20 Nov 2010, 16:32
#“Google Account Transition - Argggghhhhhhhh”
I have long complained about the fact that Google Apps Accounts can't do the same things as normal Google Accounts. The problem was exacerbated by Google allowing people to create half-assed Google Accounts with the same email address as their Google Apps account but which were in fact completely different.
Google is rightly now trying to clean this mess up and I don't envy them but gawd it's a complete pain in the arse.
So we transitioned all of the LouderVoice accounts over the other day. Except we actually didn't because my non-Google-Apps but Google-Account loudervoice.com email is hooked to an AdWords and AdSense account and they haven't been transitioned yet. So that's Pain 1.
Pain 2 - Everyone else is completely freaked out by the message they get from Google about killing theirnon-Google-Apps but Google-Account loudervoice.com emails and replacing them with blah@gmail.com. Not only that but GMail on the iPhone gets completely confused by all of this messing and you end up in a logout-login cycle which eventually sorts itself out.
Pain 3 - Google Docs is having a really hard time. It's letting me access some files but not others. Even worse, it is transient, so re-trying seems to work. See the attached pic for a doc that I created!
It's going to be a horrible few weeks for Google Apps Account holders but hopefully when the dust settles, all will be well.
16 Nov 2010, 11:04
#“The big problem with Google Places and now Hotpot”
First off, big disclaimer, I have a strong vested interest in this topic, since I run a customer reviews solutions company. But it also means I have some insight and knowledge of this topic.
Google Search has always been about automatically indexing content and trying to make the best content bubble to the top. And that is why it became the most successful search engine, period. Many of us can still remember Yahoo trying to manually manage "the best of the web" or even worse the hellhole that was DMOZ (and I was an editor!).
Why then has Google insisted on taking an old 1990s completely unscalable approach to Places data until very recently? All of the Places reviews are there because Google has done a biz dev deal with someone. That's why you see TripAdvisor, Zagat and others, not because it is the best content, but because they are partners.
Yesterday Google announced Hotpot and ye know what, well done GOOG, not bad at all. The first Google App around location and social that works well. It is, dare I say it, what Buzz V1 should have been.
In Hotpot you search either in the web app, Maps or in Android Maps, find the biz you want, write a review and it then appears on their Places page. You use a Google account to ID yourself and you can give text/stars/favourite on your review. Clean, simple. good. If I was Yelp, Qype, TripAdvisor etc, I'd be worried for the first time.
Quick aside: Why the hell is the check-in project not part of this? Please tell me they're not going to release a completely separate 4SQ-type app? Hopefully they are just iterating and it's coming soon.
I did some quick test reviews this morning and all worked well. So Google's partners can now populate your Places page with reviews; random strangers and your competitors can populate your Places page with reviews; but you, the business still can't populate your own Places page with verified customer reviews (except perhaps nefariously).
This could be solved very easily. Hotpot/Places needs a WRITE API immediately. Anyone who wants to use the API does a quick sign-up promising to obey Ts & Cs around spam, veracity etc and they get access. No more human-managed queues. Multiple reports of abuse can be quickly investigated and those abusers ejected. This means that reviews of your business, no matter where they come from, can appear in Places and benefit you.
The upside for Google?
- No more messing with a massive backlog of applications for Rich Snippets or Places inclusion.
- More valuable data!
- A set of search results that are based on the principles upon which Google was founded, not biz dev.
- And most importantly of all, when they properly open up the Check-In WRITE API too, something that competes with and could beat Facebook Places. Tick tock.
Let's hope they do it. I don't think anyone wants to see Google Local turning into an Excite Portal circa 1999.
15 Nov 2010, 17:00
#“Google Calendar Borked?”
First time ever to get this error from them.
15 Nov 2010, 14:08
#“You want one. You know you do.”
I think I'll put it on eBay. A Sugru design classic.
15 Nov 2010, 11:14
#“GMail Killer? No way in hell.”
Every time in the past two years that Facebook launches something, they have knocked my socks off. I just don't know how they execute that quickly with such a small team and such a gigantic user-base. Seeing Google struggle to keep up is frightening.
But lets be realistic about theannouncementtoday that many people are saying will be a GMail killer. If Facebook launches an email app that is functionally superior to GMail today, I'll watch the Late Late Show and a football match this week. Yes, I'm willing to risk my mental health like that for the sake of a bet. But then, we'd need to see IMAP, Custom Domains, Multiple Accounts, Filters, Sigs, POP3 from 3rd party accounts, Labels, Priority Inbox, Labs, perfect anti-spam etc etc etc.Hotmail killer sure, AOL mail killer absolutely, Yahoo Mail killer maybe.
But GMail? C'mon, unless Bucheit was reaalllllllly busy over the past few months :-)
I know lots of normal punters who rarely check their Hotmail etc now, they rely entirely on Facebook. But the current app is terrible.If they launch an upgraded email app today, then it only needs to be average to grab even more market share from the usual suspects.
An interesting aside, my Dad asked me yesterday to finally put a bullet in his eircom.net account and switch everything over to GMail. Android+GMail is the killer app for him.
13 Nov 2010, 13:17
#“Android Fanboi Aged 72”
I wrote about theincrediblycheap Orange San Francisco (ZTE Blade) while back. It's a really good Android phone for 100 PAYG in the UK. I couldn't resist when I was in London recently and grabbed one in Bayswater. Even the young lad in the shop thought Orange was crazy with the low pricing.
The phone itself is far far better than you could expect it to be for the price. Good feel, excellent 3.5"capacitivetouch screen, decent 600MHz CPU, 3.2MP camera, GPS, Wifi, 2GB SDCard in the price. Only downsides are slight tackiness/cheapness in the buttons, no ball/optical-joystick and it was riddled with Orange software branding and tools.
Luckily theawesomePaul O'Brien from Modaco has hacked it and you can root it and de-Orangeify it easily. A couple of quid took care of network unlocking it too.
My Dad is not the most technically adept to put it mildly. But he loves email and he's good with SMS. Whilst he should be relaxing in his retirement at the age of 72, instead he is up to his eyeballs in some high intensity roles. One thing that was driving him mad was that all the young guys he is dealing with have their email on demand, either via Blackberry or iPhone. He has to wait until he gets to his laptop. I tried setting up Nokia's email client on his e65 but it was a waste of time, he couldn't make head or tail of it.
Earlier in the Summer I walked him through my HTC Desire and he seemed to "get it". Even if it just did GMail (which he digs) he'd have been hooked. As I mentioned at the time, the iPhone users were bursting blood vessels as they were convinced Android would be far too complicated for him and all he could master would be one button.
Cue CJ in Reggie Perrin "I didn't get where I am today Reggie by using a phone with only one button".
However, having said that, I was concerned that a multi-decade Nokia user would have a big problem switching to touch-screen only. It is a big change.
So I thought the San Francisco would be a good trial. Instead of him upgrading on Vodafone for some stupid price and then discovering he hates touch screens, why not get the cheap phone, set it up for him, transfer his contacts and let him run with it for a week or two.
At Halloween we did exactly that. I walked him through the phone, configured it for his hands-free in the car, showed him how to do GMail, SMS, calling etc and let him at it. He struggled a bit with the on-screen keyboard. The standard Google one is a horror, the one that was default on the phone was awkward but actually the HTC IME isn't bad so we set that up for him.
He had a few simple questions like "how do I forward a text" etc but the only funny one was "how do I call someone that's not in my address book". It might sound a silly question but the "phone" bit on Android 2.1 says "dialler". And he simply didn't know that that meant "phone keypad". Some UX work still needed on Android.
I've checked in with him once a week to make sure [a] he was still happy to be using it and [b] he had no problems. Every response is about how much he loves having email on the go!
He says he'll have some detailed questions for me at Christmas which I'm looking forward to (I bet he wants to install Angry Birds :-D ) but otherwise he is a very happy man indeed.
The question is whether we bother upgrade him to a better Android phone. We had thought we'd do that when the Desire Z came out with a proper Qwerty keyboard but he hasn't complained about the lack of keys at all. The other reason for upgrading is that the antenna on the San Francisco is pretty crap. It gets no signal in some parts of their house where the old Nokia would have 2 bars.
Of course, my eldest is desperately hoping his Grandad does upgrade so he can move from the G1. The inability to play Angry Birds on that is driving him mad.
If a phone that good can be made that cheap, Nokia really must be planking themselves. Brand loyalty means nothing if you aren't delivering for your customers.
If you want one of the San Franciscos in Ireland, I believe you can just pop over the border to your nearest Orange shop.
Aside: During this process I discovered that he was on some ancient rip-off Vodafone plan. 500 minutes but ZERO texts included! I have upgraded him to 500 mins + 500 Texts + 1GB Data for a few quid more but his monthly bill will go down as he isn't paying for SMS any more.