Google Analytics has put together a series of videos demonstrating what poor Web design can do to an online commerce site - situations we’d never put up in real life.
Produced by Google’s in-house video agency in the UK, all the spots have the absurdity of a Monty Python skit. It seems weird for Google to be dissing online search and e-commerce, but here it serves the greater goal of telling people to learn more about their customers via Analytics. And in this case, it’s funny ‘cause it’s true.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently sat down with the Lieutenant Governor of California Gavin Newsom for an hour-long interview. Brin, as he has done in the past, wore the company’s Project Glass prototype
, and even allowed Newsom to test them out. During the interview it is revealed that the device features a touch-sensitive trackpad that allows users to scroll through content.
When asked about a potential release, Brin states that he has “some hopes to maybe get it out sometime next year,” although he did caution “that’s still a little bit of a hope.”
Of course, while Wallet is Google’s first big push into mobile payments, it is far from the first. Mobile payments have been “the future” of payments for decades now, long before the days of smartphones equipped with NFC (or Near Field Communication
). Early attempts in the 1990s from companies like DigiCash
focused not on phones, but on standalone “smart cards,” which promised better security, no transaction fees and more convenience than traditional credit cards – one day we would use them not to just pay for items at a store, but from our home computers as well. E-cash for an e-economy.
With the rapid rise of cellphones, though, came a push for mobile commerce, or “m-commerce,” an effort that really began to pick up steam in the early 2000s
when mobile payments were not just the realm of upstarts, but big players like Nokia (which would continue to push its own efforts throughout the decade). Our phones would be the one device we used for everything: they’d open doors, get us on a bus or subway, and let us pay for anything, anywhere. In many ways, that’s still the goal we’re working towards, and one that’s slowly starting to become a reality.
Old school flashback! Google couldn’t wait for April Fools’ Day to prank the web with its 8-bit version of Google Maps, temporarily replacing its standard version. Not as good or real as the Google Chrome Multitask Mode , but fun nonetheless.
On Friday, Google posted this YouTube video:
Accessing the 8-bit map is easy. Use Google Maps as you normally would to search for cities or landmarks, then click on the “Quest” picture icon in the right area of the screen to view the map as large colored pixels.
Google again at the edge of innovation - how come no one ever thought of this before? I just tried it out, and I think this increases my performance by 100% - should I get a raise?
The only phone in the US that supports NFC is the Google Nexus S, available with t-mobile and Sprint, and there are high hopes that the iPhone 5 will support it too.
Right now, Google Wallet only works with Citi-Mastercards and the Google Prepaid Card. Visa and Google announced a worldwide agreement to support the Visa payWave app, but it will still be up to the financial institutions and banks to add support.