Computers – Page 4

Coming soon to YouTube: Nym Wars 3D

May 6, 2012

Disclaimer: This is a post in which I really am thinking aloud. OK, not really aloud, unless you’re using a screen reader, and of course at that point, when you’re hearing it, I’m not thinking it anymore…but I digress. I’m not an expert on this topic so I may be missing the most salient arguments. Just be glad I’m not posting the entirety of process that got me to this point. Also: This post may be boring. Hmm, I probably shouldn’t include that disclaimer here, or I will start to feel like I have to put it at the top of everything I post. OK, feel free to start reading. Or not, if you think it’s going to be boring. As you wish.

When I read Wil Wheaton’s Google is making a huge and annoying mistake blog post, about Google rolling out a requirement that YouTube users “upgrade” to Google Plus accounts to continue rating videos, I was a bit bemused.

My initial reaction was to ask how Google could possibly avoid linking its services and the user data that go with them. If Facebook and Apple already link all their data, then can Google afford not to? Wouldn’t it be bowing out of the competition to serve the most lucratively-targeted ads? Wouldn’t that be tantamount to suicide? Google’s thing is ads.

Presumably they can’t just “upgrade” everyone’s “YouTube” accounts to “G+” ones that they can use for posting comments and +1-ing stuff all over the web if they want, because G+ requires you to give them more information.

And this is where I realize the obvious: linking YouTube to G+ brings theÂ nymwars to YouTube. (This is, in my opinion, a great post on the nymwars).

As long as G+ is just a sort of “completely optional” social network, terms like requiring a “real name” that uniquely identifies the user simply make it less attractive to those who can’t afford to be identified (this, for instance, via Making Light).

Requiring the G+ identity’s “real name” to upload to YouTube surely conflicts with Larry Page’s boast (in his 2012 Update from the CEO) that YouTube “enables an activist in Syria to broadcast globally.” Unless he’s deliberately chosen as an example an activist for whom it’s safe for everybody to know who she/he is.

But from his same statement, I get the idea that not only does Page want a â€œbeautifully simple experience across Google,â€ but that he’s now deeply invested in the idea of clearing out all our web personae from Google services (or worse, sorting and collating them) and making Google the definitive source of info on people. Applying behavioural data, so valuable in targeting ads, to searches for people.Â Annnnd … becoming an authoritative verifier of identity (via)?

I don’t have any new insight on the nymwars, but I’ll put in two cents on one aspect: the fact that Bradley Horowitz so trivialized the concerns of users over the G+ “real names” policy, pretending it’s an issue with the “signup completion” process and happily proclaiming that the majority of the problem is sorted because a nickname can now be added to a G+ profile, sends a chill down my spine. If Google is up to something it doesn’t want its users to notice, well, the best course is probably to continue to try to deflect the questions just like that.

At any rate there’s a pretty fundamental clash arising between the way people use the web and the terms on which Google plans to allow us to use its services.

The price of Google’s services is going up.* The changeover is going to be pretty disruptive for content producers on YouTube who, like Wil Wheaton, have a stake in likes or subscriptions.

As for whether the brand can afford the move to consolidate all its users into G+ entities, I don’t know. Can annoyed users, including influential ones like Wheaton and Neil Gaiman, affect the course Google has plotted? Will Google services just become so uncomfortable that they start to shed users? Or will it be a storm in a teacup until enough of us are acclimatized to the warmer water in our fishbowls (the two metaphors don’t – intentionally, at least – refer to each other in some clever way – unfortunately).

As for whether Google can afford not to make the move, I wonder that too. What revenue model can Google turn to in the near term if it chooses to ease off on a core strength (acquisition and analysis of user data) and let Apple and Facebook outdo it in advertising?

The landscape can change fast through the jockeying of competitors for position (heh, more mixing of metaphors). If Apple decides to compete with YouTube, users of this service will have to create an account with Apple, if they don’t already have one, and there they’ll be, inside Apple’s garden, and Apple will know who they are.

Are there more creative, more disruptive (in that new, positive way) paths Google should be plotting? Are they plotting them, while I’m distracted by the old-fashioned negative disruption they seem to be effecting on their old properties? I’ll be interested to see how it unfolds.

*It’s been said many times that if we’re not paying for a service, then we are not the customer; we are the product. But that’s an incomplete picture, since we do pay for these services with our data, which is in our possession before we hand it to the providers. I’m sure that’s been said many times too.

A Galaxy Nexus Review

February 2, 2012February 10, 2012

Call me weak-willed. I bought a Galaxy Nexus, not long after declaring I’d beaten the temptation. My old not-very-smart phone had stopped working, and I was loving my Asus Transformer, a 10-inch tablet running the Android operating system (Honeycomb variant) but craved something easier to hold with a dozing baby occupying one arm.

I did consider the iPhone, despite the nonexistence of iTunes for Linux and misgivings over the level of control that Apple wants to keep over devices people buy from them. There’s a wealth of mature iOS apps and the photo samples I’ve seen are fantastic for a phone.

I took the plunge on the Galaxy Nexus in advance of a trip to MontrÃ©al, where GPS and Google Maps helped us to plan just about everything (and that’s just using the wifi in the hotel and looking at cached maps while out).

Without further ado, some impressions of the Galaxy Nexus:

Size: It’s a little big; a bit unstable to shift around in one hand (and I really don’t want to drop such a pricey device). On the other hand (heh heh groan), coming from a 10-inch tablet, I had been worried about using a phone-sized screen, so I didn’t feel comfortable going for anything much smaller. I think that was the right inclination. For the reduction in screen size, I didn’t find the iPhone (for example) was noticeably more secure in the hand, particularly when taking photos, because it’s thick and heavy.

Build: Luxurious. Where the ASUS Transformer does some things very well, and makes no apologies about the rest, the Galaxy Nexus is at another level. Comfy sculpted shape, nice texture on the back (well, the Transformer has a nice texture on the back too). Smoothly and solidly put together. The display glass is rounded where it meets the chassis. The battery cover is super-light, strong and flexible, and does not feel bendy when it’s in place. I’ve seen it criticized as seeming “cheap.” I think that’s nuts. It’s good engineering, and it looks and feels great. But that’s the perspective of someone who thinks a heavy, thick, shatter-able glass backside on an electronic device is a drawback rather than a feature. Because the screen is very slightly concave, the phone rests on the ends of the plastic chassis, rather than on the glass, when it’s sitting face-down on a flat surface. The screen coating is slippery and the display, when off, is very black. I’ve had trouble finding it in the dark. Below is a pic of it sitting on top of the Transformer (both screen-side up).

Display: The Galaxy Nexus has an “RGBG” PenTile display, which uses a couple of smaller green subpixels for every red-blue pair. From an angle, a nominally white screen does take on a visibly greenish hue. Straight on, it looks fine. I’m not sure why, but for the first couple of days, whenever I would look away from the screen, the room would seem lit with old-fashioned fluorescent lights for a few seconds. I almost never notice this anymore, which I find interesting. Text looks really smooth, and I do appreciate the very black blacks of the “Super AMOLED” technology. The colours are oversaturated, which means flesh tones look orangey and it would be unwise to edit an important photo for colours on the phone. Having scrutinized the iPhone 4s in the store, all things being otherwise equal (including screen size), I’d probably prefer its display.

(The very good Fresco Pro finger-drawing app.)

I took some close-ups of both screens with a Panasonic DMC-LX3. This was partly to see just how much detail the LX3 could capture, as I’ve had some good luck with pseudo-macro shots with that camera. To model for the shots, I chose Wikipedia, for its white background, black text, and good vibes. Being a nerd, I thought the entry on niobium would be as good as anything. Â First the Galaxy Nexus with its PenTile pixel arrangement:

The background is nominally white. If I’d exposed the photo longer to make it nice and bright, the individual pixels would have looked blown out in the close-up crop:

Now the RGB screen of the TF101 Transformer. The screen is bigger, the pixel density is lower, and the text is bigger. Both sets of photos are at about the same magnification: the LX3 zoom was set to the widest possible angle and the lens was almost touching the screen in each case.

Cropped:

RGBRGBRGBRGBRGB. Oh. Sorry, I thought you’d left. Where was I?

I don’t mind the resolution on the Transformer’s IPS screen, and I love the colours, but text is luxuriously clear and smooth on the Galaxy Nexus.

Camera:Â I was disappointed. I can take photos really quickly, but it seems really difficult to take a clear photo at any speed. Using tapping-to-focus, I sometimes think I see it focusing through the clearest point and settling at a different one. Every once in a while I get a decent shot, and it starts me off again wondering whether there’s something dodgy going on in software. This is where my strongest argument for getting an iPhone lies.

Filesystem: Because of the way the filesystem is set up on the Galaxy Nexus, with data and apps sharing the whole space, there’s less space wasted. However, for some reason this means Google couldn’t set this phone up as a USB mass storage device. Which means I tried to use an app (ES File Explorer, which I’ve loved up until this point) to transfer my photos over a Samba network.Â And then a whole pile of videos failed to transfer to the computer. Uh oh. They were also no longer on the phone. Crap is all I have to say about that. That and some other roughly synonymous words.

As it happens, PTP mode works fine for transferring these files via USB to my computer. Probably should have done that in the first place. However, what I really want is a removable microSD card I can slot into my reader. Argh. It’s a long time since I’ve lost files and it makes me a bit agitated.

General use: Very responsive. Again the word “smooth” comes to mind. This phone is one smooth package. I have one huge complaint about the ergonomics though: the volume rocker is opposite the power button. I regularly hit both when I’m trying to hit only one. If I hit them simultaneously when the phone is on, it takes a screenshot. If I hit just the volume rocker, it vibrates or makes a beep to tell me how loud I’m setting the volume with it. This can be inconvenient if I’m trying to settle a baby down, and could be equally annoying in a lecture or a meeting. Plus, that wasn’t what I was trying to do, so I have to take the time to try again.

Text entry: The stock Android keyboard in Ice Cream Sandwich is a lot nicer than that in Honeycomb. For tapping out letters I no longer feel that Thumb Keyboard is necessary (whereas it was a great discovery on my Transformer), but since putting the Swype beta on the Transformer I find any other keyboard on a touchscreen to be agonizing to use.

As of this writing, I’m pretty sure Swype hasn’t been released to work under Ice Cream Sandwich, although an unauthorized version of the beta modified to work on the Galaxy Nexus can be found. One thing to note about the latest Swype is that it includes Dragon voice recognition, which beats the pants off of the Google voice recognition, at least when it’s me talking.

Face recognition to unlock: it features amusingly in ads and is a talking point, but it’s more a toy than a security feature. Â I enabled it to see how well it works. Most of the time it said it couldn’t find my face, that the lighting was too dark, or just that it didn’t recognize me, and dropped me to a keypad to enter my PIN. I disabled it again.

Overall, I’m very happy with the Galaxy Nexus as a portable internet tool (and it works fine as a phone). It’s a tiny bit big in my medium-sized hands, if I can’t devote much attention to it. With Swype (still unofficial on this phone), it’s easy to compose short texts. The camera is OK, though I don’t feel that I can leave my Panasonic LX3 at home if I think I may want to take photos. This is the biggest downside for me, having seen some iPhone 4s photo samples.

I’m hoping that by the time I’m ready to replace this, devices will routinely include Wacom-like pressure-sensitive stylus tech for really awesome portable sketching functionality.

Ruminations on the launch of the Google Galaxy Nexus

November 29, 2011

Warning: the following is not even remotely entertaining.

I was very tempted to preorder the new Samsung/Google Galaxy Nexus smartphone. I managed to talk myself down from that very expensive precipice, but I did a fair amount of reading and thinking about it. Now that I’ve done all that thinking, I’ll put some of the product up here, just to pretend it wasn’t a total waste of time.

It’s natural to compare the new flagship Google phone with the latest iPhone, but when I came across a post casting the “launch” of the Galaxy Nexus (i.e. the first day’s sales at the first shop to have the GN available in the UK), as a pathetic failure (citing a lack of queues out the door), it (despite striking me as disingenuous) set me thinking.

If Google had intended the launch to really be an event, they’d have made sure there was stock in a lot of locations, that everybody knew where to go and when, and that it would be a fun place to be. As it was, one shop in London had the thing on the announced launch date, and it was difficult to have confidence that even that was going to happen, until it actually did.

I don’t think Google are really trying for blockbuster phone sales – not blockbuster Galaxy Nexus sales, in any case, not right out of the gate.

Apple offers a couple of options (colour and storage) on a standard device. If you want the latest phone running iOS, you know what to buy, and it’s the one phone Apple wants you to buy. Making an event of the launch is absolutely the right thing to do to help capitalize on the pent-up desire for a new iPhone, and to fuel continuing interest in Apple products.

The Android device market is different. There are multiple manufacturers, each with several devices aimed at different user niches. Here, it’s all about choice, and the latest and greatest is regularly knocked off its pedestal by a new, more powerful device.

Maximizing the number of users interfacing with the net via Android, regardless of whose hardware it’s on, prevents other software makers from getting a stranglehold on how content (and what content) is allowed to be consumed on mobile platforms, and using Android fosters a sense of allegiance to Google as a brand. Blowing away the other manufacturers’ Android market share with “THE Android phone” wouldn’t necessarily benefit Google .

In fact, huge initial sales of the Galaxy Nexus could be counterproductive. If masses of people had been inspired to line up and spend iPhone quantities of cash on the Galaxy Nexus on its release, many would now be wondering what life would have been like with an iPhone, while they wait for their favourite apps to all be compatible with ICS, and for Adobe Flash support, and for the volume bug to be sorted. While the volume problem may have been unanticipated, Google would have been perfectly well aware that a lot of software, including Flash, won’t be compatible with the new version of the OS at first.

The Galaxy Nexus is a publicity vehicle and reference device for the thing Google really wants people to care about: shiny new Android 4.0, “Ice Cream Sandwich” (ICS for short), the unification of Google’s phone and tablet operating systems (OS). Google wants the thing first in the hands of the technically-minded; specifically, early adopters who don’t hold a grudge over a few rough edges, and developers who will release apps for ICS.

These two (overlapping) groups will perform the two major services of squashing bugs that would leave a bad taste in the mouth (now there’s a metaphor) of a mainstream consumer, and of developing and adapting apps to work with ICS. This prepares the ground for the manufacturers to release their own devices with a polished ICS on board, and people’s favourite apps ready to go when they upgrade.

OK, that’s all fine. But all that thinking didn’t answer the one really important question: not being a developer, and having plenty of things to spend money on besides a phone, how do I justify getting myself one of these?