A little bit Burning Man, a little bit inspiration.
It’s refreshing to see so many people just being themselves and sharing a very unique experience. One day I hope to make the trip to Burning Man. Until then, videos like this will have to hold me over.
I woke up Sunday morning and found nothing readily available in the house to eat. Normally I would settle on toast and peanut butter in this situation, but I was feeling a bit adventurous. I had a decent collection of raw ingredients in the cabinets for once and figured if Hardee’s can make fresh biscuits, so can I. I did a quick Google search and settled on J.P.’s Big Daddy Biscuits largely due to the name and the fact that I owned all the ingredients.
Everything was going swimmingly. It seemed that I was on course to achieve biscuit nirvana on my first ever attempt. After kneading the dough I realized I had made a critical error. I needed a round cookie-cutter – which I do not own. The recipe says you can flour a juice glass and use that instead, but that just seemed… well… boring.
Last month, Google announced it would be deprecating their Translations service (along with other APIs) due to an unsustainable economic burden. From the Google Translate API page:
Important: The Google Translate API has been officially deprecated as of May 26, 2011. Due to the substantial economic burden caused by extensive abuse, the number of requests you may make per day will be limited and the API will be shut off completely on December 1, 2011. For website translations, we encourage you to use the Google Translate Element.
This begs the question “are any Google services economically sustainable?” Google cites abusive use as the cause of the burden – but is that just the result of a popular and much-needed service? How are those companies/developers who make use of this service going to adapt?
While perusing my tumblr feed I came across a TED Talk I felt I should share. In it, Eli Pariser, author of “The Filter Bubble” (Paper, Kindle, Nook), talks about how a personalized Internet experience may be narrowing our world view. In the video Pariser points out that, without notifying us, Google and Facebook both pre-filter our search results/news feed and tailor the results to what is most in-line with our personal preferences. Google can even do this if you aren’t logged in – as it displays search results based on 57 “signals” ranging from what kind of computer you’re using to where you’re sitting (home, coffee shop, work, etc).
Interestingly enough, Google just today updated Google News for “more variety and multimedia”. From the site (emphasis is my doing):
Personalized top stories: The Top Stories section is expanded to six or more stories from three to give you more topic diversity. The first three stories remain unpersonalized and the same as before. The rest may be personalized based on your interests. To personalize your Google News experience you can click on “Edit” under “News for you.” You can choose the “Standard Edition” if you don’t want personalization.
So it appears that Google is started to apply this personalization algorithm to the top stories segment of Google News. It will be interesting to see how long the unpersonalized stories remain after they’ve had a chance to analyze traffic and see which users prefer.
So the question becomes, is this an acceptable way for us to get our world view? In a society that is becoming more and more fundamentally conflicted, is it wise to feed the masses only that which will go down easily or should we be challenged to suffer some intellectual indigestion from time to time? Further, would it be any more “right” to force people to see views that conflict with their own? Is the problem what is presented or the fact there’s no way to opt out of it? I’d love some discussion around this. I don’t believe there is a clear-cut answer, as there are certainly pros and cons for either side.
Regardless, I’ll certainly be adding “The Filter Bubble” to my reading list.
I had never heard of Google I/O before this year.
I may never forgive myself.
This developer-centric conference is the mecca for all Google/Android followers, with two days of live sessions and sandboxes covering everything from “Best Practices for Accessing Google APIs on Android” to “Don’t just build a mobile app. Build a business.” Google also takes this opportunity to introduce us to the latest in their mobile operating systems as well as letting us peek under the covers to see what’s around the corner.
As for what’s next, Google doesn’t disappoint. We were shown the Chromebooks, introduced to Google’s new music streaming service, and teased with Android@Home. While the first two topics are enough to make most technophiles giddy with excitement, this post is going to focus on Android@Home. Here’s the actual presentation from Google I/O for those interested. Cliff notes version: Google wants to make every electronic device and appliance in your home an I/O device. From your Android phone or tablet you’ll be able to control your lighting, stereo, appliances, and even your thermostat eventually. In the video, Joe Britt mentions a few ideas for this technology. One is an alarm clock that slowly raises the lights and begins to play your favorite music to wake you up. Another, and the one I’m most excited about, is augmenting the gaming experience.