Tag Archives: Google

Google hangout timeout message : are you still there?

Apr 28 2013

So we migrated from skype to google hangout. It works better for a multiple videos conference. The other day we were quietly discussing with my mom. And suddenly, we both heard a loud alert. Google was interrupting our conversation with this popup.

And my mom and I had a crazy laugh at this. My mom said “Errr, why is it asking this ? Does it not hear us talk or what ?”

Then we observed, it seems it’s something that only happens after a certain amount of time. The message is friendly so it really amused us. But indeed it would make sense that they check the sound more than the time.

Posted in Notes, Observations, U.I

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Google plus and real names: filtering users based on their intentions

Posted on August 30, 2011 by eloone
g+

g+

This morning the topic of G+ and real names was buzzing because of  Eric Smidth’s statement:

If You Don’t Want To Use Your Real Name, Don’t Use Google+

See the source on Mashable.

It’s funny that I read that article this morning because it directly relates to the book review I had just written about “The myths of innovation”. If you read that article, you’ll see that I was reporting my breakthrough about “good” and “bad” technology. I had found that “good” or “bad” technology happens because of users’ actions, and you can’t prevent users from using badly a technology because you can’t control users’ intentions. No application can filter its users according to their intentions (no application can read your mind, yet). Well, apparently I was wrong because that’s exactly what G+ name policy is trying to do. The article reports that Eric Smidth said:

would be better if we knew you were a real person rather than a dog or a fake person. Some people are just evil and we should be able to ID them and rank them downward.

which implies that “using fake name” => “has bad intentions” => filter.

G+ is not a creative tool

For me G+ name policy just means that G+ is clearly not destined to be a creative tool. It’s rather meant to Continue reading →

Posted in News

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Ad driven content

Posted on March 19, 2011 by eloone

Tonight I went to a social event organized via group texts . I don’t like those events because of last time, but this time I went because I knew at least one person and I set myself on “socialize” mode to meet new people. In general, I never know how to present myself. It’s complicated and I am quite reluctant to talk about my activity in detail, because “computer engineering” sounds a bit mechanical and almost hostile to most people. I haven’t found how to introduce the human dimension yet in my description. And I hate wasting time trying to explain how much it’s interesting when I already get the look “oh, computing….” I still have to think about that, but I always end up saying “I build websites”.

Building ad driven websites

Fortunately, tonight I was glad and surprised to meet someone for who computing is not an alien activity. I was able to talk naturally about the web and science fiction – nice. I discovered an activity of the web I was not fully aware of : building ad driven websites.

Continue reading →

Posted in Observations, Stories

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On Google new search engine

Posted on September 10, 2010 by eloone

Google just released an incredibly fast new instant search engine, it was so fast I kept typing on the enter key not realizing the results were already there. Here is the consequent chat I had with my brother about it (he was eating fries at midnight) :

me : pfff crazy !!!!!
brother : i will take google’s slimming pill in 2025
me : yea but it won’t remove your existing fat
brother : sure it will
it’s google
me : but google doesn’t know about the past
brother : not yet
soon you’ll be able to search in your memory
2020
me : yea that would be nice
we’ll be able to set the search speed as well
maybe for some people it’s too fast
brother : yea i’d like a query that takes 3mn to let me make some tea
me : lol
sure
like tele-transportation or the train
i’m sure some would still prefer the train
brother : yea to have a little nap
would be nice to have a 15mn nap according to the difficulty of the question
me : yea it means that we’re sure to get the right answer, instead of always searching very fast without finding anything
brother : yeah
me : you have the choice between a 20mn search that will output you the answer you’ve been looking for forever or a 10ms query that gives you the wrong answer
brother :and it can take years before it delivers an answer if it’s too complicated
me : lol
brother : then it notifies you by mail when it found it
me : exactly

enabled by gtalk.

More seriously I will be glad to use instant search essentially to type my query directly in the browser’s address bar, otherwise it’s still a fancy feature. For the moment seeing the results even before I finish typing my query is a little disappointing when the results are not satisfying.

Also now I want the same for google search images.

Posted in News, U.X, Chats

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Google and the troopers

Posted on August 24, 2010 by eloone
 
The full series is here, so cool ! 😉

Posted in Machines are digging

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