Online Observations

Google is experimenting with Gigabit Internet – WOW

This just came in. While Google has been discussing better bandwidth access with the US government agencies, it decided to take it up a notch by announcing an experimental gigabit internet access in Unites States for offer for up to 500,000 consumers. This is amazing, it really is. From their blog:

We’re planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. We’ll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

Well, I wish some of this high bandwidth stuff would come into India. Anyway, it would be interesting to see what people come up with for these type of bandwidths speeds. Google is hoping to see some innovation. So are we.

Google Dashboard is just too good

Over the years, Google has entered our lives more and more (to some this is scary, to others like me, its great). We use Gmail, Orkut, Blogger, Google Analytics, Google Alerts, Google Docs, Calendar, and many more services. All of these services are accessed using one Google account that you have. So, it would only make sense that you should be able to configure, monitor, and access all these services from one single place. Till recently, this was not the case, but over a month ago, Google launched Google Dashboard. Yes, this is a place where you can doo all those things that I just talked about from one single place.

The Dashboard provides access to over 20 services. Not only can you configure the services from the single place, but it also shows you information about the service right there on the dashboard. For instance, for Gmail, it shows you how many emails, drafts, sent mail, chat, etc. do you have in your account and when the most recent one happened. Or for Google Docs it would show you how many documents are there in your account, and how many have been shared with you by others. There is all this data and much more.

Here’s a video that Google put up when it announced this feature on their official blog:

 

The Google Dashboard is part of the Data Liberation effort from Google.

A chance to get a Google Wave invitation

Google is making waves with Google Wave. And people are running everywhere to get invited. And some people are coming up with excellent ideas to make most of their good fortune of having available Google Wave invites (reminds of the days when I used to sell or trade Gmail invites). One such blog is called Shout Me Loud. This guy has a competition going which may get you a Google Wave invite from him. Here’s the competition post, if you are interested. Basically, he invites you to comment on his posts, contribute to the posts (not stupid comments), for the next two days, and the top commentators get the invites that he has remaining.

Good idea I think. Great idea, in fact. I am definitely participating. If I win, maybe I will hold a similar contest.

A perfect match, IMO

Google’s acquisition of reCAPTCHA is a thing that was bound to happen. reCAPTCHA’s technology has been working for identifying printed text from old books by combining them with recognized words in a dual word CAPTCHA. Google of course is spending big money towards books and newspapers, and so it makes perfect sense for them to acquire a company which is already working on digitizing old printed text which cannot be managed reliably through OCR.

Good show reCAPTCHA.

Google releases Chrome version 3, but still no plugins

The latest release of Chrome sneaked up on me (I didn’t notice it update on my computer), but it was a pleasant surprise. I first noticed it when my “New Tab” page started showing a new look. And I like it. It is completely redesigned, and for the better I have to say. One of the newest things that got added to Chrome is Theme support. There is a decent themes gallery which can be used to customize the look and feel of your browser. Here’s a screenshot of the Theme gallery.

There are other improvements and bug fixes, and the browser is supposed to be faster now. However, the one thing that is conspicuously missing is support for plugins.

Yes, there is no plugin support still.

I think till that is available, there will be no major shift to Chrome, especially now that FireFox 3.5 is so much faster in rendering pages.

Play Monopoly using Google maps

Remember Monopoly, the game? I loved playing that game growing up. And now it has finally come into the Internet age. You can now play the game online using Google Maps, and pitting yourself against players from around the world.

The game developers are releasing this version tomorrow (Sep 9, 2009), and here is the link to the website: http://www.monopolycitystreets.com/While not too much detail is available for the game today, it is already known that you will play the game using Google Maps, and will literally be able to buy anything in the world. Some of the game play details are available here and there, here’s what I came across.

You will get a starting set of $3 million (play money of course), and will be able to buy properties such as hotels, houses, stadiums, high rises, etc. And depending on the property, you will receive rent (up to $100 million a day for a sky scraper). Prices will be a function of the location. And in true Monopoly spirit, you will be able to sabotage other players by using Monopoly Chance cards.

I am very excited to start playing this game.

FAILURE: Google releases new version, but I can’t get it

I use Google Chrome as my browser (it is just way faster than any other). However, there are a number of things that annoy me about the browser. One of the most annoying problems is that of update. My browser never auto-updates, despite the fact that there are two GoogleUpdate.exe processes running in my task manager all the time. So, the way I keep up with my updates is by manually going to the About box, and checking if a new update is available.

But, today even that is not working for me. Google has released a new update but it doesn’t matter, because I can’t get it. I have been trying again and again to update my copy, but I keep getting an “Update server not available” error (screen shot below).

This is such a failure. I would love to be able to run the latest and the greatest, but these stupid errors keep getting in the way.