Brads reaction: Been looking forward to this one and loving it mostly. The +1 integration is a bit funky, especially on mobile.

Google has begun rolling out a new version of Google Reader, one that sports a brand-new design and deep integration with Google+. The new Google Reader sports a more spartan interface. It s similar to the Google Calendar redesign and Gmail makeover the search giant launched earlier this year. The greater change is the addition of Google+ sharing. Google has replaced the Like button with the +1 button, which lets users share content to their Google+ accounts. Reader users with a Google+ login can choose which circles they d like to share articles to using Google+ snippets.
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Brads reaction: You can start to see how Google is coming at the whole social media issue, they get developers, businesses, search and publishers onside and they basically crowbar users onto the platform. Will this strategy work? It will be really interesting to see what they do with their business pages.

It has begun. Google released the first of its application programming interfaces (API) for its social network Google+ today, according to a Google blog post. The API focuses only on publicly available data the information users have purposefully included on their public Google+ pages. Developers can access users profiles and latest posts. Google is also providing code libraries for those who code in a different language such as Java, Python, Ruby or PHP. Developers can find more information about Google+ APIs on the company s new dedicated site and the Google Developers site.
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Johns reaction: Interesting points from key industry people. Mobile is all, and spectrum may be an issue oif there is not a mass production of small bay stations.

Looking back on the last ten years of telecoms was easy deciding to look ahead at the next ten years was a little more difficult, and fraught with the potential for massive future embarrassment. Still, the TelecomTV editors were undeterred, and bravely took up the challenge of a special edition of the Main Agenda to mark our tenth anniversary. Martyn Warwick, Guy Daniels and Ian Scales put their reputations on the line and attempt to predict the future
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Brads reaction: It's early days yet but although there are some drawbacks there are a lot of positives as well. There are a lot of great libraries turning up for HTML5 for example.

HTML5 heralds some nifty new features and the potential for sparking a Web programming paradigm shift, and as everyone who has read the tech press knows, there is nothing like HTML5 for fixing the Internet. Sprinkle some HTML5 into your code, and your websites will be faster and fancier -- it'll make your teeth white, too. But the reality of what HTML5 can do for those seeking native-app performance on the Web falls short of the hype.
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Brads reaction: This is the kind of thing Google should be working on instead of wasting resources on their social media efforts. This could be really innovative if they get it right.

In a blog post, Google software engineer James Hawkins revealed that the company is working on a system called Web Intents in which it will enable Chrome users to pipe data between different Web applications much the same way Android users can share data between apps. The idea is to create one API that various Web applications can all use to pass data back and forth without a need for each one to be designed to work with the other apps.
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Brads reaction: Not surprising really. IE9 has caused a lot of issues with existing sites, I think that website owners will be getting sick of having to retest and re-deploy code every time Microsoft updates their software. Doesn't seem to be too much of a problem for the rest.

It is the first day of the month, and that means new browser market share numbers from Net Applications. Internet Explorer and Firefox continue to slide as Chrome and Safari gain ground -- but Microsoft focuses on its own silver lining. The bottom line is that Chrome and Safari have been steadily rising, while Internet Explorer and Firefox have been steadily falling. Given the relatively small differences month to month, it will still take years before Chrome passes Safari -- never mind catching up to IE, but the trend is what it is.
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Johns reaction: One massive step for speech recognition technology ?

The notion of asking a computer for information out loud is familiar to most of us only from science fiction. Google is trying to change that by adding speech recognition to its search engine, and releasing technology that would allow any browser, website, or app to use the feature. But are you ready to give up your keyboards and talk to Google instead? Over the last two weeks, speech input for Google has gradually been rolled out to every person using Google's Chrome browser. A microphone icon appears at the right end of the iconic search box. If you have a microphone built-in or attached to your computer, clicking that icon creates a direct audio connection to Google's servers, which will convert your spoken words into text. It has been possible to speak Google search queries using a smart phone for almost three years; since last year, Android handsets have been able to take voice input in any situation where a keyboard would normally be used. "That was transformational, because people stopped worrying about when they could and couldn't speak to the phone," says Vincent Vanhoucke, who leads the voice search engineering team at Google. Over the last 12 months, the number of spoken inputs, search or otherwise, via Android devices has climbed six times, and every day, tens of thousands of hours of audio speech are fed into Google's servers. "On Android, a large fraction of the use is people dictating e-mail and SMS," says Vanhoucke.
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Johns reaction: Always with the embedded chip, but will it happen?

Ray Hammond is the futurologist who first coined the term "online" back in 1983. In the video below, he discusses his predictions for the future, his advice for marketers and why he's not going mad when he says we'll all have voices in our heads by 2040.
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Brads reaction: Apple are betting that processing will stay with the device, Google have their bets on the browser.

Apple and Google now dominate the world's smartphone and mobile device markets and both are now pushing quickly into the cloud. While Apple this week finally acknowledged the cloud as the future of computing - and will finally allow iPads and iPhones to be set up and backed up without being tethered to a computer running iTunes - many Google fans accurately note that Apple's iCloud doesn't bring a lot of new features to the table. The truth is that Apple seems a little late in endorsing the cloud as the new center of our digital world. After all, cloud computing has played a growing role in the tech industry for years.
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Johns reaction: Are Microsoft and Bing about to leap Google?

Starting tomorrow, recommendations from your Facebook friends will become a regular part of Web search results, at least if you use Microsoft's Bing search engine. A slew of new Bing features will use Facebook data to make its results more personalized, and to create opportunities to discuss what you are searching for with friends. Bing will let users ask their Facebook friends for shopping advice through its search results. "All the stuff we've deployed previously for Web search doesn't acknowledge the human, social side of our users," says Stefan Weitz, director of Bing search. "We were looking at it like engineers, and built a purely logic-based experience," Weitz says. Web search should support people's instincts to consult and discuss things with other people. A survey of Bing users found that 90 percent would talk with a friend before they acted on any information they found when searching online for product information, he says.
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Johns reaction: Things will always get smaller and lighter so phones as thin as paper was somewhat inevitably going to happen. Give it a few years and it will be as mass produced and as disposable as real paper.

A prototype flexible smartphone made of electronic paper has been created by Canadian researchers. The PaperPhone can do all the things bulkier smartphones can do such as make and take calls, send messages, play music or display e-books. The gadget triggers different functions and features when bent, folded and flexed at its corners or sides. "Everything is going to look and feel like this within five years," said creator Dr Roel Vertegaal. The device emerged from a collaboration between researchers at the Human Media Lab at Queen's University, Canada and Arizona State University's Motivational Environments Research group. "This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper," said Dr Vertegaal in a statement. "You interact with it by bending it into a cell phone, flipping the corner to turn pages, or writing on it with a pen."
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Brads reaction: As a small business owner I understand the importance of cashflow. Its about time that software companies understood this. The pricing is marginal, if they really want to nip piracy in the bud, reduce it by another 30% and watch the dollars flow.

49 notes seems pretty pricey to me, but then it's a lot more palatable than coughing up $US650 for the full-flavour package. It could be handy if you had a month's work ahead of you, or always want the latest version. Adobe Subscription Editions has just launched now, for all your favourite pieces of software including InDesign and Dreamweaver. [Macworld]
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Johns reaction: Must have spent a motza but looks great

When it comes to 3D mapping projection - It is still always all about creativity, not the tools. An emotional connection with the brand is essential regardless of the medium.
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Johns reaction: Its a brave company that would put this on their site for all to see but an interesting concept.

Most of us spend a lot of time talking online, but those conversations are scattered all over the place. Some conversations take the form of comments under a piece of content, but a lot happens on sites unrelated to the source of the content. Now a startup called Livefyre has built a commenting platform that pulls together conversations from across the Web. It lets a website make sure that conversations about its content are centered right there on its own site.
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Brads reaction: I have started watching online TV a lot more, especially iView on the ABC. Its just a question of bandwidth. I have a "fast" ADSL connection and still I struggle to watch an episode of The Goodies from start to finish. Online TV won't take off here until the NBN is complete.

Over the past week there's been a bit of discussion around whether the US video entity Hulu has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with PBL/Nine about setting up a local presence. Right now online video is still very niche in Australia, and you could even argue it's niche globally - especially when it comes to professionally made content that goes beyond 2-3 minutes.
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Brads reaction: Can you imagine what this would do for travel!

I have to wonder sometimes if there s a limit to where Google will go. I can t deny that I'm often cheering them on as they gobble up companies, scan every book ever published and apparently turn a smartphone into a universal translator, as reported by New Scientist.
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Brads reaction: Is SEO killing Google?

This semester, my students at the School of Information at UC-Berkeley researched the VC system from the perspective of company founders. We prepared a detailed survey; randomly selected 500 companies from a venture database; and set out to contact the founders. Thanks to Reid Hoffman, we were able to get premium access to LinkedIn which was very helpful and provided a wealth of information. But some of the founders didn t have LinkedIn accounts, and others didn t respond to our LinkedIn inmails . So I instructed my students to use Google searches to research each founder s work history, by year, and to track him or her down in that way.
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Chrises reaction: I suggest, STRONGLY, that you read this. I'm consistently surprised at how few of my contacts in AUNZ are across what is going on in this space in the US and in Europe and very soon Asia. Publishers, agencies and networks all need to sit up and see what's happening in the data-driven space (cookies, tags, automated buying etc) and have an idea of how to approach it.

The acronym barrier has been broken time and again as data-driven media gains speed across digital channels.
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Kates reaction: Is this for real? This would be awsome for the ipad......meetings would never be the same again.

Steve Jobs may not have endorsed this, but if the Table Connect for iPhone takes off, it could give Microsoft's Surface a run for the money. The only thing holding this gigantic 58-inch working iPhone desk back is the need to hook up a jailbroken iPhone to the "table" via a 30-pin dock connector.
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Brads reaction: Hmmmm, we might have to give it another look? Or is RSS just plain dead?

We've been FeedBurner users here at Carsonified HQ since it was created. At first it was an amazing god-send. Then it got bought by Google and promptly got locked in a closet and forgotten about. It's finally been re-released with a shiny new interface and real-time tracking capabilities. Thanks for finally getting off your ass Google, and making good on that $100m acquisition.
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