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Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

arstechnica.com

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Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#51

Post by navytank »

laxatives wrote: post #21

I've always thought that the Google Ideas projects page was a bit frightening since many of projects are closely tied to defense. https://www.google.com/ideas/projects/

It doesn't seem to be mentioned directly on the Google Ideas site, but it seems to be Jared Cohen's own project [1], which could explain the defense-themed sub-projects. Interestingly, their last public blog post was in late January [2], and there hasn't seemed to be much public press on what they're doing in a few years.

[1] http://www.cfr.org/experts/cybersecurity-iran-technology-and... [2] https://plus.google.com/+GoogleIdeas/posts

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#53

Post by Omniusaspirer »

toddkaufmann wrote: post #22
derekp7 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate this so much -- I'll search for some topic, and start getting ads all over the internet related to that topic. Case in point -- a few weeks ago I clicked on an article regarding "Computer Scientist Barbie", and clicked through the Amazon link. Guess how many Barbie advertisements I'm getting now.

Why are you getting ads ? Install adblock and/or ghostery. Fewer distractions, fewer cycles going to adware. I don't see ads in search results or gmail, and not a lot of other places either. Noticeably different on a tablet though, where it doesn't run. At the other extreme is adnauseum, which clicks on every ad link in the background (so you don't have to).

Thanks for the adnaseum mention, looks like it's still in a pretty early stage but it's exactly the sort of thing I've been looking for (and contemplating coding myself).

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#54

Post by eru »

ams6110 wrote: post #49
xasos wrote: post #46

I'm especially excited for their Google X projects[1] - Google Glass 2, Google X Display, and self-driving cars. If reports[2] are true that the self-driving car will start testing next month, I predict 2015 may be the year that autonomous vehicles go big. The true goals of Lyft and Uber will finally be accomplished. I hope there won't be much red tape getting these cars into action (although there probably will be).…

I think you're at least a decade, more likely two or three, on the optimistic side. But we'll see.

Do you think the technological progress will take that long, or do we need the time for the regulation to catch up?

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#55

Post by eru »

kbenson wrote: post #40
toddkaufmann wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you getting ads ? Install adblock and/or ghostery. Fewer distractions, fewer cycles going to adware. I don't see ads in search results or gmail, and not a lot of other places either. Noticeably different on a tablet though, where it doesn't run. At the other extreme is adnauseum, which clicks on every ad link in the background (so you don't have to).

I don't know about the above commenter, but I have a complex relationship with ads and adblock. I installed it to get around some particularly nauseating behavior of some sites long ago, and largely forgot about it and browsed blissfully unaware of how much it was helping. Then I realized that someone else's Pandora was playing ads, and mine wasn't, it just plays song after song. I felt rather bad about that. This is…

Why don't you just pay for Pandora and feel good about yourself? (Interesting enough, they make more money on the ads than on a paid subscriber.)

> Visual content with visual ads isn't really that different, except that some sites vastly overshoot the expected norm for the ad-inconvenience to content ratio. I think those few bad-actors are to blame for most the current online ad-climate.

Yes, convenience is key. Print magazines often have around 50% ads, but they don't bother as much as on a screen.

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#56

Post by stephenr »

Pxtl wrote: post #29
higherpurpose wrote: post #13

If Google wants to offer "Whatsapp competition" in 2015, it should have 2 things, that Hangouts doesn't right now: 1) fast (instant) performance 2) end-to-end encryption (I wouldn't mind if they used the same Axolotl protocol as TextSecure and Whatsapp) If it doesn't have any of those, I won't be using it.

And one thing Whatsapp does have right now: Support every platform. Not just Android 4 and iOS. You need to go right down to Android 2.3, Windows Phone, Symbian, Blackberry, Nintendo DS, PSP, etc. Even IE6.

The precursor to hangouts (talk) had the best kind of cross platform support: it was an open standard (xmpp) so you didn't need the official Google app to use it.

The major im apps are all built on xmpp base anyway so what's missing is support for any extensions they create and open access for third party clients using standard xmpp protocols

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#57

Post by objclxt »

eru wrote: post #54
ams6110 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're at least a decade, more likely two or three, on the optimistic side. But we'll see.

Do you think the technological progress will take that long, or do we need the time for the regulation to catch up?

Both. It's clear right now that self driving cars can perform very well in ideal conditions. It is considerably less clear that they perform well in poor conditions. I haven't seen any demos of Google's tech in low visibility / high rain, and demos of other tech that I have seen went poorly.

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#58

Post by nl »

xasos wrote: post #46

I'm especially excited for their Google X projects[1] - Google Glass 2, Google X Display, and self-driving cars. If reports[2] are true that the self-driving car will start testing next month, I predict 2015 may be the year that autonomous vehicles go big. The true goals of Lyft and Uber will finally be accomplished. I hope there won't be much red tape getting these cars into action (although there probably will be).…

I predict 2015 may be the year that autonomous vehicles go big.

I'd be interested to hear what you define "go big" as.

It's going to be years before driverless cars are seen at all regularly outside the areas Google (and others) are testing them in, and at least a decade before they are common enough to start having a real impact on the road. The economics of car buying alone will show you that: eg, how many 5 year-old cars do you see on the road? And it'll be at least 5 years before you can buy a driverless car, right?.

I hope there won't be much red tape getting these cars into action

Really?!?!?!

I had to pass a driving test to be allowed to drive. I hope something similar happens for driverless car implementations. While I'd trust a Google-coded car, I'm not at all sure I'd trust one coded by .

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#59

Post by endtime »

Jormundir wrote: post #19
jmathes wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We try to show ads that people will click on AND THEN buy/use whatever's on the other end. This maximizes advertiser value, long-term Google profit, and user experience all at once. So we're trying to show you ads that you want to see, rather than ads that try to provoke you into clicking (like Buzzfeed articles)

Maximized user experience would be no ads.

No ads would mean no Google, which (given Google's market share) I respectfully claim would not be maximized user experience.

Re: Everything we know Google is working on for the new year

#60

Post by StavrosK »

brymaster wrote: post #43
jmathes wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We try to show ads that people will click on AND THEN buy/use whatever's on the other end. This maximizes advertiser value, long-term Google profit, and user experience all at once. So we're trying to show you ads that you want to see, rather than ads that try to provoke you into clicking (like Buzzfeed articles)

> So we're trying to show you ads that you want to see, rather than ads that try to provoke you into clicking (like Buzzfeed articles) Huh, really? Then why aren't you actually doing that? http://imgur.com/a/KGsQh

> trying
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