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Re:Ah yeah by Eunuchswear · 2011-11-18 23:18 · Score: 3, Informative · on Climate Panel Says To Prepare For Weird Weather

First it was "Global Warming", then when it became obvious that wasn't happening it was "Climate Change".

No.

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=global+warming%2Cclimate+change&year_start=1970&year_end=2008&corpus=5&smoothing=3

Click the little linky thing.

Re:There should be some penalties... by recrudescence · 2011-09-26 21:04 · Score: 1 · on Apple Denied Trademark For 'Multi-Touch'

Then again: http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=multitouch&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=0

GoogleLabs by unencode200x · 2011-09-06 10:25 · Score: 2 · on Google Kills Desktop Search and Gadgets

They're shutting down all sorts of things. See http://www.googlelabs.com/ this includes: - Google Breadcrumb
Fast Flip
Aardvark
Google Sets
City Tours
Places Directory
Image Swirl
Google News Timeline
App Inventor for Android (possibly open sourcing?)
Google Squared
Google Talk Guru
Script Converter (replaced)
Realtime Mytracks
Sputnik

This sucks, I've always liked the little projects they have going on there. It sounds like they have some other things cooking though, and I'm happy to see them open sourcing some of it.

Re:What Use Are They? by znerk · 2011-08-25 21:04 · Score: 1 · on Acer CEO Declares a Tablets Bubble

Worthless for anything that requires typing because typing on an on-screen keyboard is a nightmare.

Beats the hell out of using thumbs on a screen a quarter of the size, though, don't it? Or for that matter, why not use voice recognition? If you haven't looked at it lately, you really really should. Google's voice recognition is simply worlds better than that old dragon was, and without spending 6 hours training it to recognize an individual's voice, either. Sit down with it for half an hour and actually train it, and it supposedly gets better... but I didn't bother because it works so well "out of the box".

Terrible web browsing experience.

Not as terrible as trying to use a laptop or netbook while standing up on a moving bus.

Rubbish for gaming because of the lack of physical controls.

Pocket Legends has over a million users. There are literally millions of downloads of console emulators. EVE Online is also coming to the mobile space. StarCraft looks like it was MADE for a touchscreen interface. Last but not anywhere near least, the Xperia Play - and if you go over my comment history, you will see that I absolutely hate Sony, so I'm the last guy anyone would expect to be pimping their products.

Useless for watching videos because who wants to hold their display while watching a film.

Try looking for protective cases that have kickstands built in, or just go low-tech and use a document holder. Duh.

Can't be used for any RealWork such as programming, graphic design, stock trading or anything else.

I'll grant some of this point. With typing being more difficult due to a lack of keyboard, coding would be a pain... assuming you don't change the interface. But I'm going to have to call "citation needed" on your "graphic design", your "stock trading", and with 4.5 billion app downloads last month just on the official android market and over 100,000 apps specifically for iPads released in the past 16 months, your "anything else".

I can't really think what else they could be used for.

There's really only a few things that PCs are better at, and that's a combination of sheer horsepower and input hardware. Toss a bluetooth keyboard into the mix, add a kickstand to the back, and 90% of the PC market will evaporate as people realize they don't need a $1200 monster to check their email and surf the web. Admittedly, that's just replacing a PC with a different piece of hardware... but I will point out that hospitals and law firms figured out that tablets roxor their soxors years ago.

In other words, Tablet + WiFi + content server = It's not the tablet that's useless for most people, it's the PC. With the advent of streaming media and wireless connec

Google Labs is being phased out... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-10 07:32 · Score: 0 · on Google Pulls Plug On Programming For the Masses

"As part of phasing out Google Labs, we will be shutting down Breadcrumb by Sept. 2, 2011."
Source

It's not just app inventor, they're shutting down Labs.
I knew there was a reason they moved the link to the bottom of the page months ago.

Re:From the horses mouth... by Monchanger · 2011-08-10 06:42 · Score: 1 · on Google Pulls Plug On Programming For the Masses

"Google offering it" .... "and then said, 'sorry, nevermind'." ... "the idea that this product had the long legs of a major backer"

False premises, all three.

AI was not an offering or a product with any sort of backing. It was Google allowing a small group of Googler's to test out their 20% toy. That's all. This is a commonly-known aspect of Google's modus operendi. It's clearly stated on the About page:

App Inventor is a part of Google Labs, a playground for Google Engineers and adventurous Google users

It's amazing how people keep feigning outrage when Google tries to act like a profit-seeking business. It didn't just shut it down, but gave a 3-month notice. "End of the year" means educators can run their existing program for a full semester and update it in time for the next one based on what happens with AI. And Google isn't actually saying that AI will be unavailable to educators - the only thing that we know is going away in 90 days is the current URL:

Additionally, because of App Inventor’s success in the education space, we are exploring opportunities to support the educational use of App Inventor on an open source platform. As a result of these changes App Inventor will be available through the end of the year but users should expect the current App Inventor URL [appinventor.googlelabs.com] to change sometime in the next 90 days.

People seriously need to get a grip and relax their overdeveloped cynicism reflex. Then take just one damn minute to understand what's actually going on in the world rather than relying on the ubiquitous sensationalist editorializing and spreading the false information contained therein.

Re:From the horses mouth... by Monchanger · 2011-08-10 06:42 · Score: 1 · on Google Pulls Plug On Programming For the Masses

"Google offering it" .... "and then said, 'sorry, nevermind'." ... "the idea that this product had the long legs of a major backer"

False premises, all three.

AI was not an offering or a product with any sort of backing. It was Google allowing a small group of Googler's to test out their 20% toy. That's all. This is a commonly-known aspect of Google's modus operendi. It's clearly stated on the About page:

App Inventor is a part of Google Labs, a playground for Google Engineers and adventurous Google users

It's amazing how people keep feigning outrage when Google tries to act like a profit-seeking business. It didn't just shut it down, but gave a 3-month notice. "End of the year" means educators can run their existing program for a full semester and update it in time for the next one based on what happens with AI. And Google isn't actually saying that AI will be unavailable to educators - the only thing that we know is going away in 90 days is the current URL:

Additionally, because of App Inventor’s success in the education space, we are exploring opportunities to support the educational use of App Inventor on an open source platform. As a result of these changes App Inventor will be available through the end of the year but users should expect the current App Inventor URL [appinventor.googlelabs.com] to change sometime in the next 90 days.

People seriously need to get a grip and relax their overdeveloped cynicism reflex. Then take just one damn minute to understand what's actually going on in the world rather than relying on the ubiquitous sensationalist editorializing and spreading the false information contained therein.

From the horses mouth... by itchythebear · 2011-08-10 04:51 · Score: 5, Informative · on Google Pulls Plug On Programming For the Masses

Quoted from the original source at Google:

With the winding down of Google Labs, Google will discontinue App Inventor as a Google product and will open source the code. Additionally, because of App Inventor’s success in the education space, we are exploring opportunities to support the educational use of App Inventor on an open source platform.

source

Re:Have you not seen by InsertCleverUsername · 2011-07-25 07:31 · Score: 1 · on Can AI Games Create Super-Intelligent Humans?

Where would you posit that consciousness comes from?

It's my belief that thoughts and feelings (and beliefs) are nothing more than complex chemical reactions. Of course, I have no further proof of that than the fact that drinking makes you drunk and lowers inhibitions, marijuana lowers combativeness in most people, and LSD can cause psychosis.

Sure, I'm down with that. Changing the chemical composition certainly does affect the cogs in our mental machinery. Of course whether we explain these phenomena at the chemical, electrical, or structural level, the concept of emergent behavior applies. An individual chemical molecule, synaptic firing, or neuron doesn't think or have consciousness, but collectively they create incredibly complex behaviors, just as individual logic gates don't create the trajectory and explosion of an Angry Bird. Conway's game of life (a favorite programming pastime of mine in high school) and Mandlebrot sets are great, simple demonstrations of how very simple things can create complexity.

The day may soon come when a chatbot will be indistinguishable from a human operator --perhaps more interesting than most of our Facebook friends. Will it be thinking? Will it be conscious?

I wrote one thirty years ago, so yes, fooling people is very easy. Since you're a psychologist you know how strong anthropomorphism is.

(Actually, I gave it up shortly after the degree and returned to programming. Computers are easier to understand and fix!)

But you know, when David Copperfield makes that elephant disappear, it's just a trick. We're easily fooled. David Ferrucci was right -- Watson doesn't think, and a submarine doesn't swim any more than a battleship does.

But, if the criterion is moving through water efficiently, the machine wins. If an online AI communicates as convincingly as a human, does the difference matter at a functional level? The best AI efforts in the next few decades will probably be able to fool a lot of people that want to humanize the machine. But I believe that before the end of the century there will be neural nets that rival our own complexity and won't need to fool anyone. It's hard to believe, considering where our technology is currently at, but look at the amazing stuff in the sci-fi of the late 20th century that's banal reality today.

So, if a software-based brain passed a Turing duck test, on what basis would you know it wasn't conscious?

And that hits the nail squarely on the head -- that is the danger that Frank Herbert pointed out in DUNE; people using "intelligent" machines to enslave other humans. It isn't the computer that's intelligent, it's its programmer.

At the moment... But, I don't think the very first hard-AI intelligent machines will be programmed exactly. Imagine a not-so-distant future where a cross-disciplinary team creates a sub-atomic resolution perfect scan of a living human brain, then captures all the data necessary to recreate a flawless simulation of that brain. Would that electronic brain not be a conscious, thinking --yet non-organic-- thing?

Google Body by smcdow · 2011-07-20 10:18 · Score: 1 · on Google To Discontinue Google Labs

Well, that's a bummer.

I just started using Google Body a couple of months ago, and it's fantastic.

Especially if you're about to have shoulder surgery.

Don't want to see this site disappear...

Re:Google is an engineering oriented company. by ColdWetDog · 2011-06-25 07:53 · Score: 1 · on Two More Google Software Dogs Go To Heaven

How about describing how "thinking like an engineer" specifically doomed Google Health and Power Meter? Those are the subject of this story. It's hard to even think about the examples you gave within the context of the facts we're actually talking about.

Because at least with Power Meter, there was very little ability to communicate with anyone about how to use it, how to fix it, how to expand it, how to benefit from it. Just sat in it's corner like a nice little piece of software. Kinda like an engineer hacking at something, getting it to work more or less then wandering off on another project. Unpolished. Unknown.

That's great if you're the engineer trying to find a solution to a particular problem and then move on. If you are marketing a 'service' to people, this method just drops the ball. Of course, we are not privy to any of the back room discussions about the products. It may well have come down to 'nice idea, how does it make money?' with the subsequent realization that it won't and hence support is cut off. Unfortunately, Google's recent MO seems to be tossing out a number of essentially unrelated software products to see what sticks. And few have. Quite likely the next time Google Labs comes up with something, I'll just ignore it.

Google Body is another project that seems to work along these lines. A nice idea, unclear financial viability, little to no marketing, little to no upgrades. Basic functionality but no polish. I suspect it will get canned somewhere down the line.

Re:"require you to allow access to your email" by Hermanas · 2011-06-06 23:38 · Score: 0 · on New Tool Shows Would-Be Emailers If You're Swamped

To answer your question "Is slashdot on its last legs?":

Yes. Yes, it is.

I checked the other day, and Slashdot seems to be going the way of VB6... Google Correlate.

Autism and Christmas by Kickstart70 · 2011-05-26 07:51 · Score: 1 · on New Google Tool To Find Trend Correlations

So, why do people stop caring about autism at Christmas? http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=autism&e=christmas&t=weekly#

Re:Correlation is causation. by ryantmer · 2011-05-26 07:26 · Score: 1 · on New Google Tool To Find Trend Correlations

Yes, and apparently Google is closely related (98%!) to kratom, a medicinal leaf from Southeast Asia! http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=google&t=weekly#

I agree with parent's sarcasm - while this is pretty cool, I can't help but feel that it's more of a toy than a tool...

Re:Assumptions out the window by DJCater · 2011-05-26 05:58 · Score: 1 · on New Google Tool To Find Trend Correlations

http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=Alfred+Hitchcock&t=weekly# is another good example, especially given that this one is just his name and doesn't include the term "birthday" and that searches for his name probably number quite highly anyway.

Re:Assumptions out the window by DJCater · 2011-05-26 05:54 · Score: 1 · on New Google Tool To Find Trend Correlations

Yep:

http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=Sir+Arthur+Conan+Doyle's+birthday&t=weekly#

Look through the past doodles (US/Global ones) here: http://www.google.com/logos/ and then search for them here: http://correlate.googlelabs.com/ to see how powerful the doodle is at generating search volume.

Re:Assumptions out the window by DJCater · 2011-05-26 05:54 · Score: 1 · on New Google Tool To Find Trend Correlations

Yep:

http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=Sir+Arthur+Conan+Doyle's+birthday&t=weekly#

Look through the past doodles (US/Global ones) here: http://www.google.com/logos/ and then search for them here: http://correlate.googlelabs.com/ to see how powerful the doodle is at generating search volume.

Highest normalized weekly search term volume? by DJCater · 2011-05-26 05:37 · Score: 1 · on New Google Tool To Find Trend Correlations

Here's a quick game. Try and find a term with the highest weekly search volume when normalized against the usual search volume for that term.

Here are a few that I tried:

http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=inauguration&t=weekly# - 19.637
http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=Michael+Jackson&t=weekly# - 14.537
http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=Olympics&t=weekly# - 11.656
http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=new+year's+eve&t=weekly# - 8.355

Also, check out the "Search by Drawing" option: http://correlate.googlelabs.com/draw - it's great. Draw your own graph and see what search terms correlate with it.

Highest normalized weekly search term volume? by DJCater · 2011-05-26 05:37 · Score: 1 · on New Google Tool To Find Trend Correlations

Here's a quick game. Try and find a term with the highest weekly search volume when normalized against the usual search volume for that term.

Here are a few that I tried:

http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=inauguration&t=weekly# - 19.637
http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=Michael+Jackson&t=weekly# - 14.537
http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=Olympics&t=weekly# - 11.656
http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=new+year's+eve&t=weekly# - 8.355

Also, check out the "Search by Drawing" option: http://correlate.googlelabs.com/draw - it's great. Draw your own graph and see what search terms correlate with it.

Highest normalized weekly search term volume? by DJCater · 2011-05-26 05:37 · Score: 1 · on New Google Tool To Find Trend Correlations

Here's a quick game. Try and find a term with the highest weekly search volume when normalized against the usual search volume for that term.

Here are a few that I tried:

http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=inauguration&t=weekly# - 19.637
http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=Michael+Jackson&t=weekly# - 14.537
http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=Olympics&t=weekly# - 11.656
http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=new+year's+eve&t=weekly# - 8.355

Also, check out the "Search by Drawing" option: http://correlate.googlelabs.com/draw - it's great. Draw your own graph and see what search terms correlate with it.

Highest normalized weekly search term volume? by DJCater · 2011-05-26 05:37 · Score: 1 · on New Google Tool To Find Trend Correlations

Here's a quick game. Try and find a term with the highest weekly search volume when normalized against the usual search volume for that term.

Here are a few that I tried:

http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=inauguration&t=weekly# - 19.637
http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=Michael+Jackson&t=weekly# - 14.537
http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=Olympics&t=weekly# - 11.656
http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=new+year's+eve&t=weekly# - 8.355

Also, check out the "Search by Drawing" option: http://correlate.googlelabs.com/draw - it's great. Draw your own graph and see what search terms correlate with it.

Highest normalized weekly search term volume? by DJCater · 2011-05-26 05:37 · Score: 1 · on New Google Tool To Find Trend Correlations

Here's a quick game. Try and find a term with the highest weekly search volume when normalized against the usual search volume for that term.

Here are a few that I tried:

http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=inauguration&t=weekly# - 19.637
http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=Michael+Jackson&t=weekly# - 14.537
http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=Olympics&t=weekly# - 11.656
http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=new+year's+eve&t=weekly# - 8.355

Also, check out the "Search by Drawing" option: http://correlate.googlelabs.com/draw - it's great. Draw your own graph and see what search terms correlate with it.

Re:Correlation is causation. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-05-26 04:46 · Score: 0 · on New Google Tool To Find Trend Correlations

You think that's bad? Just look at how many of them are born in Richmond, VA!

http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=babies&e=in%20richmond%20va&t=weekly#

Re:Correlation is causation. by danbert8 · 2011-05-26 02:13 · Score: 0 · on New Google Tool To Find Trend Correlations

Excel 2003 causes BABIES!!!

http://correlate.googlelabs.com/search?e=babies&e=excel%202003&t=weekly

another google april fools joke by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-01 04:30 · Score: 0 · on Google Gmail Motion Beta

I went to Google Labs, clicked on Google Body and got Google Cow.

Direct Link to Body Browser (the April Fool's joke will stop working after today obviously):
http://bodybrowser.googlelabs.com/

Their video overview of Google Cow (which should last longer than today's alteration of the main page):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vZVwaYjoos

Waiting till multiprocess tabs sometime FF#unknown by vlueboy · 2011-03-23 10:20 · Score: 1 · on Firefox 4, A Day Later

Someone else reminded us of the multiprocess tab project. A year ago, we thought FF 3.7 (now 3.6.4 and up) would unveil Electrolysis' "Multiple content processes" but the wiki has been stranded with no clear timeline updates for 9 months since July 2010.

The main FF4 page mentions JS speed increases, but MCP seems nothing other than some difficult bulletpoint under-the-hood that they can't figure out how to market. It feels like when Vista and Seven cheated us out of a new unhierarchycal database filesystem that was promised several years before 2006. What makes me lose hope is that even FF's summary page for 2011 is mum about MCP. Their detailed roadmap does promise Electrolysis and "Process-per-tab to mitigate effects of crashes." I'm more surprised they have a goal of extension-independent cookie/popup blacklists. It also will hopefully tackle the lag to undisplay current tabs and begin to switch to another, especially when some of them have flash loaded.

Besides implementing WebGL (see google body), FF4 doesn't present a substancial under-the-hood improvement for normal 3.6 users, let alone your average home/office drone. I have an idea! Wait till FF5 comes out in 3 short months, and FF6 in 6 months, or FF7 in December. Meanwhile, I have higher chances of test-driving IE9 to see how much it's grown. FF has reached its aimless teen girl phase, and thinks life is nothing but trying new emo makeup every month :)

Google Listen? by iONiUM · 2011-02-07 09:54 · Score: 3, Interesting · on Last.FM To Require Subscription For Mobiles and Home Devices

There's always Google Listen. It's not live streaming, but it has a large library of "casts" (should I really use the word "pod" for non-iOS centric speech?) available for your to peruse. Just sayin'..

Re:Ahhh fractal demos by commodore64_love · 2011-02-01 03:47 · Score: 1 · on Julia Meets HTML5

This link works with Mozilla seamonkey. Nice - http://juliamap.googlelabs.com/

An actual link by jfengel · 2011-02-01 03:41 · Score: 2 · on Julia Meets HTML5

Here's a wacky idea: a link that is (a) not slashdotted, and (b) not to a blog posting.

Google Labs

Original link by kiwix · 2011-02-01 03:30 · Score: 1 · on Julia Meets HTML5

The HTML demo is here.

In other new, /. editors still fail the Turing test.

Re:Link missing from summary. Fixed by Kagura · 2011-02-01 03:24 · Score: 1 · on Julia Meets HTML5

Here's the link to Google Labs' Julia Map. Also, there's an obvious typo in the summary title. I'm unhappy with Slashdot lately.

Link missing from summary. by Kagura · 2011-02-01 03:23 · Score: 3, Insightful · on Julia Meets HTML5

Here's the link to Google Labs' . Also, there's an obvious typo in the summary title. I'm unhappy with Slashdot lately.

Re:Microsoft and Haskell by falconwolf · 2011-01-21 18:17 · Score: 1 · on Are Google's Patents Too Weak To Protect Android?

I next googled Google Research and got 3,120,000 results.

Yes, you should put the search terms in quote.

If you had bothered to click on the links you would have seen I did not use quotes for either search.

Even on the very first page of your search results, none of the hits are for "Research"

Let's see... The first result is Diagnostic criteria for research studies: Report of the NINDSAIREN International Workshop*. Notice how "research is in the title. However there is a problem with that page, the only place with Google is a link for Google Scholar searches. There's nothing about Google research.

Now let's try the second result... Research Commentary: Technology-Mediated Learning—A Call for Greater Depth and Breadth of Research, again has research in the title. But like the first there's nothing about Google research.

Do you still stand by your assertion there was not a result on the first page of result for Google Research without research being there? Oh, I just thought of some thing. Perhaps what you meant was "research" was not capitalized. Nope that doesn't explain it because it is capitalized in the title of the second page linked to. Now I wonder if you tried to apply the same (lack of) reasoning to the search for Microsoft Research. I bet I can go through and find the same things in those results.

It should be noted though that, so far as I know, Google doesn't have a dedicated pure R&D department like MSR;

Google labs isn't about research or development? If you don't think it is then I don't know what your definitions of research or development are. The Google FAQs even say it, Who builds these things, anyway?
"Google engineers and researchers do."
I added the bold to highlight the word being highlighted. Of the 8 other questions there was another one where research was used.

Falcon

Re:Microsoft and Haskell by falconwolf · 2011-01-21 18:17 · Score: 1 · on Are Google's Patents Too Weak To Protect Android?

I next googled Google Research and got 3,120,000 results.

Yes, you should put the search terms in quote.

If you had bothered to click on the links you would have seen I did not use quotes for either search.

Even on the very first page of your search results, none of the hits are for "Research"

Let's see... The first result is Diagnostic criteria for research studies: Report of the NINDSAIREN International Workshop*. Notice how "research is in the title. However there is a problem with that page, the only place with Google is a link for Google Scholar searches. There's nothing about Google research.

Now let's try the second result... Research Commentary: Technology-Mediated Learning—A Call for Greater Depth and Breadth of Research, again has research in the title. But like the first there's nothing about Google research.

Do you still stand by your assertion there was not a result on the first page of result for Google Research without research being there? Oh, I just thought of some thing. Perhaps what you meant was "research" was not capitalized. Nope that doesn't explain it because it is capitalized in the title of the second page linked to. Now I wonder if you tried to apply the same (lack of) reasoning to the search for Microsoft Research. I bet I can go through and find the same things in those results.

It should be noted though that, so far as I know, Google doesn't have a dedicated pure R&D department like MSR;

Google labs isn't about research or development? If you don't think it is then I don't know what your definitions of research or development are. The Google FAQs even say it, Who builds these things, anyway?
"Google engineers and researchers do."
I added the bold to highlight the word being highlighted. Of the 8 other questions there was another one where research was used.

Falcon