Android’s robotic logo is now famous. It looks friendly and cheerful, which although is a very difficult thing to do with a logo. That the current logo of Android could have been very different. Dan Morrill who works in Google’s Android Engineering team shared some of the early proposed logos for Android.
These proposed robotic logos nicknamed in Google as ‘Dandroids’ were shared by Dan Morrill on Google+.
One could hardly blame Dan Morrill for designing slightly scary looking robots as a logo as he is not a designer. He is an engineer and it is expected that his design ideas might at best be amateurish.
It would be one really hideous looking mascot if Google actually had not chosen a professional designer’s ideas which gave us the current mascot.
Thankfully better sense prevailed and Google has a much nicer, friendly looking Android logo 🙂 .
What are your views on these early proposed Android mascots? Do drop in your comments.
The U.S Federal Trade Commission, has been investigating Google for anti-trust practices. Yesterday, the U.S FTC ruled that there was not enough evidence for them to file an antitrust case against Google.
The review by FTC was based on complaints that Google was pushing its own services and promoting them on search results at the cost of competitors. The complaints were that they were doing this at the cost of results pointing to competitors. This means Google will not face antitrust proceedings like Microsoft did almost 15 years ago.
The Winners:
The biggest winner is obviously Google. Is it the sole winner? I do not think so. For example if what Google shows in its search results can be regulated, it might not just stop there. Someone might want to regulate what Facebook shows in user feeds.
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The other winners are users. Though a lot of people complain about Google being evil, but then we can easily shift to Bing or Yahoo for our search needs.
Google dominates mainly because it gives better results and any sort of control on it freedom to make changes to it search results would have at some point of time diluted its ability to serve useful results.
Microsoft Cries Foul!
It also looks like Microsoft will end up being the big loser. It owns Bing and would have greatly benefited from any restrictions of Google. Microsoft also complained in a blog post about Google escaping antitrust proceeding. That said Microsoft itself faced antitrust cases and has lost before.
How unhappy Microsoft is feeling can be gauged from this blog post in which it basically complains about Google not being hit with antitrust proceedings. It is understandable to see Microsoft’s angst as it keeps investing billions in their search engine and still is nowhere close to challenge Google’s dominance.
Apple might be looking to fix issues it had with it’s mapping service by acquiring Waze. A report by TechCrunch puts the negotiations for a deal that is between $400 – $700 million. Waze is an app that combines maps of streets and roads with the ability of users to give traffic updates about a particular route they are on. This makes the information on Waze very open and accurate. One could accurately describe it as a social network of drivers.
Waze would give Apple a quick fix. The data is crowd-sourced and more importantly with real-time updates. It is a great app for traffic updates. So Apple might get what is called a quick fix solution for now. The issue is Waze does not exactly have a lot of business listings like say Foursqure. So Apple will have to figure out a new way to get those business listings.
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Apple’s struggles with its Maps app has actually brought to notice how much effort Google puts into collecting data for Google Maps. It has literally thousands of people working on Google maps with their Street view cars travelling through roads and collecting data. It also allows Google Map users to correct inaccurate information process. Though these corrections do have a review period but my personal experience suggested they are approved within a couple of days.
If Apple is indeed trying to buy itself out of the maps mess, it will be very unlike them. Apple is known for buckling down and working on some ingenious solution to problems.
Have you used Waze? Let us know your views in your comments.
As I decided to jot down things that I might expect to happen in the technology world in 2013, I ended up writing mostly thinking about Apple, Samsung, Google and Facebook. But what about very popular companies that are struggling? I thought it would be interesting to write down about five tech related companies for whom 2013 could potentially be a “make or break” year.
#1. Research in Motion (BlackBerry)
The Canadian company has been struggling not just from competition by Apple’s iPhone but also Android based phones. Once a BlackBerry phone symbolized the words “smart phone”. It is still a very popular phone with office going executives but it has lost out in being relevant to younger buyers. RIM also has seen its tablet offering called Playbook finding very few takers.
RIM will launch BlackBerry 10 featuring the new BB10 OS on 30th January. The year ahead with new BlackBerry phones could possibly mark its big turn around or its fall into the abyss. Forget an about turn, I am not sure it will even manage to keep a status quo in the mobile market. It will face additional competition from new Windows 8 phones that will enter the market in bigger numbers in 2013.
#2. Nokia
Nokia has a glorious past as cell-phone manufacturer just like RIM. The company actually failed to get enough app developers on its platform and saw itself underestimating the acceptability of touch-screen phones. While Samsung bet on Android to produce smart-phones, Nokia shook hands with Microsoft.
In the year ahead, Nokia has a well received Lumia 920 running Windows 8. The next iteration of Lumia 920 will be crucial. The real problem for Nokia is that at the moment its destiny is not its own hands. It is in the hands of Microsoft’s Windows 8 phone becoming popular. Nokia will not just be working hard in 2013 but also praying hard for success of Windows 8 phone.
Facebook has not really been pushed too much by Google+ in 2012 but expect that to change in the year ahead. Facebook is still struggling to find a way to make money from mobile phone platforms. More people will end up using Facebook as an app from their phones or tablets than their browsers. This would mean the current revenue stream of getting clicks from ads will see a decline. Facebook Gifts is a novel idea which would make Facebook’s revenue model as e-commerce instead of advertising. It also has not exactly fixed its reputation on the privacy front.
If Facebook continues to struggle to make money from it’s mobile phone platform 2013, it would with some big questions marks on Facebook’s future. That said its 1 billion users will make sure it remains relevant despite the health of its revenues.
#4. Dropbox
Personally I love using Dropbox. I have used it for over two years. I love its referral program and also use it as a default service to backup my photos.
But the threat to Dropbox is very real. It faces competition from some seriously big players with some seriously deep pockets. Google Drive and Apple’s iCloud services will challenge Dropbox.
The problem for Dropbox seems two-fold. It lacks the financial resources of Apple and Google. Additionally it also lacks having its own mobile phone platform like an iOS and Android or online services like Gmail or Google search. If Dropbox does not hold its own against Google and Apple, it might have to think of a dreaded word called “acquisition”.
#5. Microsoft
I thought more than a few times before putting Microsoft in this list. But it makes sense that 2013 will be the year, Microsoft will make a incredible turn-around or end up further behind the likes of Google and Apple. Microsoft has faltered with its online business with Bing. It has also invested in So.cl which is a social network that not one has taken notice of as yet.
Windows 8 as an OS is great attempt by Microsoft. It is a real step forward design wise by Microsoft. The company’s big problem is that Windows 8 phone is not exactly getting people very excited. The Surface tablets also have not exactly caught people’s imagination and Microsoft has nothing in the 7-inch tablet form factor.
One major issue for Microsoft has been developing a great app eco-system for developers. At the moment is a bit of a ghost town. It is nowhere close to the likes of Apple’s app store or Google Play. If Microsoft does not fix these drawbacks with Windows 8 over the year, 2013 could end up being the year which would mark the beginning of the end in Microsoft’s history.
What are your expectations from the tech world for the year ahead? Do let us know in your comments. Also as this is the last post before the year 2012 ends, let me take this opportunity to wish all our readers a very “Happy New Year!”
Instagram has seen a massive drop in daily active users. It had topped up at 16.4 million daily active users around two weeks ago but that number is down to 12.4 million daily users. According to AppData and Instagram has lost over 3.5 million users over the past 7 days as far as daily active users are concerned.
Instagram has seen amazing success in the past year or so. Its big moment was when Facebook shelled out a cool billion dollars to acquire it. Instagram was soon working closely with Facebook. Instagram on 17th December, updated its privacy policy. It basically gave itself the permission to use user photos for commercial usage.
That started a blacklash from users and it was not surprising that daily active users actually dropped by 24%. Instagram rolled back the new privacy policy update to stop the criticism but it has probably lost the ‘trust’ factor.
Why Instagram looks in trouble?
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Instgram is not really a photo app as much as it is a social app. That means during Christmas week and holiday season over the past week, it should have seen record user activity. It ideally should have seen record user activity and not a drastic loss of active users.
Instagram has also actually become less social but turning off Twitter cards which allowed Twitter feeds to display photos in the stream itself without requiring people to visit the Instagram website. Twitter hit back with its own filters for photos. Facebook itself has sort of canibalized Instagram features in their own photo app for iOS. I won’t be surprised in thinking that the best days of Instagram are behind it.
There are literally hundreds online apps we enjoy using over time, but in reality we only use a handful of them regularly. For example I give some websites like Opinsy the option to connect to my Twitter and Facebook accounts. This is done by giving the app permission regarding the account. Users can usually review these permission given to apps and revoke them.
The problem for me is that I have to sign-in and check the settings for all the web services I use like Dropbox, Google, Facebook, Twitter and Windows Live ID for managing app permissions on all of them.
I found MyPermissions a very useful tool to clean up the apps I have given permission to connect. The site is actually not very complicated and does not require your ID at all. It simply links to the landing page of app permissions for the popular online websites which are used often to give permissions to apps.
MyPermissions also allows you to use your online profiles to give it permission to actively keep a watch on your app permission. It allows clean-up of permission with a single click and also alerts you to new permissions.
MyPermissions.org works with a Chrome extension for your browser and additionally has a mobile app for iOS and Android.
Unfortunately I could not find an add-on for Firefox. Try out MyPermissions and drop in your comments.
Google’s Chrome browser will soon crack down on sneaky installation of extensions. In a blog post, Google has confirmed that the external extension deployment will be disabled by default. This will actually shut off a major security loop-hole in the Chrome browser. Currently, third-party developers can actually install hidden extension to Chrome, without the user’s knowledge.
This happens because Chrome uses Windows registry mechanism for extension deployment. This can be used by software developers to install hidden extensions directly into the browser. So once Chrome’s version 25 is deployed, users will possibly a prompt to review the extensions being installed.
It will also show a prompt every time a extensions which are not from the Chrome webstore is being installed.
Is Chrome a year late?
This update to Chrome is actually surprisingly late. Currently we are on version 23 so it should a while before Chrome 25 is rolled out. Mozilla had announced something similar almost a year ago. But then Mozilla had also faced a major issue thanks to Microsoft pushing its Skype toolbar.
The toolbar caused many browser crashes for Firefox users. Mozilla finally added the Skype toolbar into the official Firefox block list. A few months later Firefox by default stopped allowing silent installations of add-ons. That was back in August 2011, so it seems Chrome is almost a year and half late.
Well its better late than never. Do drop in your comments.
A couple of days ago, I wrote about Google showing off their festival spirit by introducing some Easter Eggs. Today on Christmas eve, Google is taking it a bit further. It has unveiled a mobile phone app which allows users to track Santa Claus dropping of gifts around the globe in real-time.
Google along with the app has also introduced a Chrome extension and a landing page for tracking Santa.
Is Santa Tracker a waste of time by Google?
At first I thought that a Santa Tracker was just a waste of time by Google. After all what does it really achieve except a few smiles. But then in this day and age when a lot of little kids users tablets such apps can be greatly entertaining. Also Google might also be giving it’s Google Maps App and Google Earth app all the publicity it can, now that it has an official one available in Apple’s iTunes App Store.
That said, it would be a lot better Christmas for some, if Google had sorted out delays in shipping their Nexus 4 phones instead of tracking an imaginary character across the world.
Google is well known for inserting some interesting Easter eggs in their search results. During the current festival season, they have introduced three different Easter eggs. If you search for terms like “Christmas”, “Hanukkah” and “Festivus”
The festival of Christmas is the more well known one while ‘Hanukkah’ is a Jewish holiday and called the festival of lights. Festivus is celebrated by some purists who do not like the commercialization of Christmas holiday.
Facebook has introduced a simplified, easy options to manage privacy. Users will be prompted about the new changes when they visit the site from their browser. The new layout is a lot better than the previous one for privacy settings. On Facebook, users will see a new ‘lock’ symbol on the top right hand corner. Clicking on it will display the simplified privacy options.
Facebook’s new simple drop-down for managing privacy options
These privacy options are not exactly new options. They are pretty much the same except that they are displayed in a less ambiguous way.
Facebook has managed to rack up 1 billion users but it has to keep growing to remain at the top in the social media sphere. The previous method of showing privacy options was very ambiguous and extreme confusing for people who were very new to Facebook.
Facebook still seems to have some strange quirks regarding settings. One of them is the tagging of users in photos. I have still not figured out how to un-tag myself from photos. If anyone has figured it out, let me know. 🙂
