iGoogle

If you're a regular reader - *insert disbelief here* - you might have noticed the changes to the site.  Among these changes is the new subheading: A (hopefully) daily tech news blog.

Yeah.  I haven't been keeping up well on that, have I?

So, I thought that I would try out iGoogle last week.  For those of you who don't know what iGoogle is, it's Google's alternate homepage.  Of course, you all know about the clean-cut homepage that Google usually sports, designed to load really fast.  iGoogle is an optional build-up of that.

What?  I'm not gonna let you look at my Facebook.  Creeper.

The Twitter and Facebook gadget alone is reason enough to go to the site.  In my opinion, it's much better than those sites that make their whole business off of putting Twitter and Facebook together.  The only downside is that you don't get FB chat on iGoogle.  Another really nice feature is the weather centre.  As you can see, it's matching the extension I have next to the address bar (although I don't know why I have two weather centers now.)  It also has news feeds in there, which you can customize. Other features that I don't have on my page include comics, games, and a TV guide.

The best feature, though, would have to be the Google Calendar feature.  I started my own calendar up recently so that I can keep track of what I'm doing next year when I'm attending university.  Having the gadget there really helps.  I can get my Twitter and Facebook feeds, as well as my schedule, on one site.  I highly recommend iGoogle for anyone who doesn't already have something like this.

Really?

Well, I literally just got home right now, so I'll make this short. Remember me talking about the prototype gigabit internet offered by Google? Well, two things: First, another company is doing the same thing in my hometown (yay!). Second, people are getting desperate. Towns are offering to name first-born children Google (or something to that effect).

Ridiculous.

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Google Streetview

So I figured out yesterday that I can find my house on Google Streetview. I was pretty excited. The house looked pretty good. The grass looked green, and there wasn't any vandalism or anything. I mentioned this to my dad, who told me he "wasn't impressed".

He clarified that he wasn't impressed that now, everybody with access to the Internet will be able to know where our home is, and what it looks like. I wasn't buying it, but he seemed pretty sure of himself.

Now, why is this such an invasion of privacy? I took a deeper look, and found that while Google wasn't breaking any laws, they have been getting a lot of backlash for the Streetview project. This isn't really new to Google, who has done a lot of things that were deemed "questionable" (i.e Google Books, Google Buzz and Gmail in the early days). But while I can understand the controversy of scanning copyrighted books without permission or storing people's private information without their knowledge, I don't see much of a problem with photographing houses. It's not any more an invasion of privacy as letting people walk on sidewalks.

In my opinion, the main opposition here comes from "future shock". It's a term you might have come across before. It's pretty much the feeling you get when you see technological advancements happening faster and faster. You feel lost, and you feel like the world's a worse place off, somehow. And that might be true. For every benefit coming out of a product, there's a downside. While Facebook gives you a chance to reconnect with people you haven't seen for years, it's possible to spend hours waiting for updates from people.

If there is one thing Google wants to accomplish, it's to obtain as much information as possible, and make it easy to access (maybe part of the reason Finland is declaring the internet a legal right). That's what they did with their search engine, their photo service, and their video service, which have pretty much cataloged a good deal of the Internet. That's what they're doing with Google Books, even with the opposition. And that's what they're doing with Streetview.

Streetview can be considered an experiment for now, but there are already some uses to it. Yesterday, I used it to plan an outing into the city, looking for restaurants close to where I was going and looking at landmarks to help me find my way there when I actually was there. You can use it to look at neighborhoods, to see if the place your new apartment is located is actually as good a neighborhood as the landlord claims. One of my favorite uses is to locate landmarks around the world, and get a good look at them, with shots like this:

which makes for a better experience than just through pictures, anyways.

And to those people who might oppose Streetview, let me ask you this: what was the first thing you looked for when you heard about it?

What are your opinions on Streetview? Leave your comments below.

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Google Supranet?

I read today that Google plans on becoming an making their own ISP service. I, for one, applaud Google's initiative, all other aspects aside. However, I have some concerns.

Google's initiative comes at a great time, when all the current ISP's are stagnating. One of the problems with the Western World (Out of three main ones) is that it is too money-centric (huh. Apparently, my spell check says that's a word). It's because of this, plus the two other reasons I'll tell you about another time, that many corporations and governments think in terms of "good enough". There hasn't been a major speed upgrade in a while. The ISP's want to sit back and watch the money roll in, with the occasional break for "fixing" everybody's connection. Google has done many amazing thing in the 12 or so years they've been active (finally, a good tech company younger than me), and I think that if they put their minds to it, they should be able to do a better job than what the current ISP's do now.

But (yes there's a 'but'), Google seems to be doing more than they can handle here. They have a zillion projects on the go (Google Chrome, Google Wave, Google Buzz, Google Chrome OS, Google Streetview, Google Earth, Google Books, the whole China thing, and not to mention keeping their regular site up), and they seem to be stretching themselves even further with each new project.

I seem to be contradicting myself here. I want change as fast as possible, but I don't want Google to change too fast. It's a case of status quo vs. change. I think that a 1G-bps connection would be a great thing for the world. However, I don't want to see Google go under doing it.

Overall, I think Google is doing the right thing. They are possibly the most "pro-change" company out there, and I always get excited at news that Google is planning something big. I really do hope they succeed in this initiative.

I want to hear your suggestions. Have your say in the comment board. Do you think Google is making the right move, or do you think you have a better solution?

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Twitter: http://twitter.com/Cdevon2