Twitter stealth technology ?

Is Twitter a technology that is emerging by stealth. In recent months I've seen:-

• Teachers asking for ideas for teaching classes
• Travellers asking for restaurant and things to do ideas
• Conference attendees broadcasting thoughts ideas
• Conference presenters asking questions of the audience in the room and in the wider world via Twitter
  
• Bloggers getting ideas from twitter
  
• Facebook users using it to update status and Twitter at the same time
  

Google is still the search engine of the masses but for specialist questions amongst a circle of friends (followers in Twitter terms) Twitter is a very powerful tool that is creeping up in its use.

You may only have 160 characters but it encourages short targeted questions

See you on Twitter ;-)

IGoogle gets a makeover

Well the google blog says its launched in the US well I've got news ts launched hear as well as my igoogle homepage captured as a screen shots shows.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-igoogle-publicly-launched.html




The telling quote is"We're very excited about these changes because it makes iGoogle a more
useful homepage and a better platform for developers. And this is just
the beginning: expect to see more canvas gadgets created by developers
and more new features on iGoogle soon.

so is it linked to chrome and other recent developments.

Chrome polishes up nicely ?

Hi all

you cant of missed the launch of Google foray into the browser market place .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7593106.stm

Now Ive only used it for an hour it is BETA !! But it seems interesting nice clean interface. It hasn't got many plug ins yet but they wont be far behind. The rumours that it isn't a forerunner to an operating system have been rubbished by many. 

But to be honest with Google apps etc and my longed mentioned strapline "The answer is the browser "and the fact many even offline applications will work through the browser watch this space . Read the storyboard at 

http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/#

Google Gears for Mobile ??

was just thinking of this as an idea last week and then came invite to next Mobile Mondays London Chapter meeting 14th July . Guess what one of the presentation tiles was

Google Gears Mobile - Charles Wiles

looking forward to it already

Emerging technologies for learning volume 3 (2008)

No apologies for blogging this Becta publication my colleague David Ley has worked with colleagues to bring this together. If you interested in emerging tech you've got to read this go on you know you want to !!!


Emerging technologies for learning volume 3 (2008)
Becta is pleased to announce that ‘Emerging technologies for learning- volume 3’ has just been published. This follow-up edition complements the first two ‘Emerging technologies for learning’ publications from 2006 and 2007.

The 'Emerging technologies for learning' series aims to help readers consider how emerging technologies may impact on education and learners in the medium term. The publications are not intended to be a comprehensive review of educational technologies, but offer some highlights across the broad spectrum of developments and trends. It should open readers up to some of the possibilities that are developing and the potential for technology to transform our ways of working, learning and interacting over the next three to five years.

Copies can be downloaded from
http://www.becta.org.uk/research/reports/emergingtechnologies

This latest publication includes the following articles:
• Growing up with Google - what it means to education (Diane Oblinger, EDUCAUSE)
• Mobile, wireless, connected - information clouds and learning (Mark van’t Hooft, Kent State University)
• Location-based and context-aware education - prospects and perils (Adam Greenfield, NYU)
• Emerging trends in serious games and virtual words (Sara de Freitas, SGI)
• ‘If it quacks like a duck…’ - developments in search technologies (Emma Tonkin, UKOLN)
• Interactive displays and next generation interfaces (Michael Haller, Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences)

Jooce V Google docs/Google Apps

Well Jooce made it in the BBC news and as a cybernomad I had a look.myself . My though was why should I keep a jooce account alongside my google account. Jooce has file storage (media player a plus) but no email so while it loks very clean why should I swap or have I missed something. I also suspect it wont work on my Ipod touch but I will try and report back

link to BBC story


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7267534.stm

Link to www.jooce.com

Google UK Schools site and Royal Geographical Society offer Google Earth training events

Nice to see google offerring some resources for UK educators havent had a chance to appraise resoorces but worth a look http://www.google.co.uk/schools/index.html

Intersting the Royal Geographical scopiety are offerring free courses in using google earth in Geography teaching Link here

Google Android developer challenge

Want to win a share of $10million US dollars Google have launched a competition

Cool apps that surprise and delight mobile users, built by developers like you, will be a huge part of the Android vision. To support you in your efforts, Google has launched the Android Developer Challenge, which will provide $10 million in awards -- no strings attached -- for great mobile apps built on the Android platform.

http://code.google.com/android/adc.html

picked this up at Future mobile event today including a cool live demo of Android and developing mobile apps in 8 minutes .

Google to talk openhandset alliance at Future of Mobile event in London

Google has changed its talk from Gmail for Mobile to cover the recent
Open Handset Alliance announcement (made on November 5th). http://www.openhandsetalliance.com for detail .
This presentation at Future of Mobile is the first European event
at which to give a public presentation on the topic.
For future of mobile programme go to this link

www.future-of-mobile.com

Google are going further into that mobile arena just as the iconic Iphone launches in the UK .

Interesting times ahead !!

Watch the video explainig android the open platform for development

This is the Gphone or so the say !

Google are hiring London a hot bed of mobile development

As regular readers know I was lucky enough to chat with Peter Norvig at the ALTC 2007 conference dinner back in September. Over a wide ranging conversation Peter dropped in that most of Google mobile development work is taking place in London. I couldn't hep noticing the advert that came up in my Gmail web clips feed. So any one know guess what the Google mobile offer is likely to be.

Gmail does IMAP is this a wow !!

Is this another pop at exchange by Google . It does seem a major advance.
As some of you know, IMAP is the best way to access your email from
multiple devices (e.g. phone or desktop). It keeps the same information
synced across all devices so that whatever you do in one place shows up
everywhere else you might access your email.

For example, I can:

• read an email in Gmail, then
• move it to the "Starred" folder on my iPhone, then
• archive it by moving it to "All Mail" in Thunderbird, then
• see all of those changes on my Blackberry (or any of the above devices for that matter).

For the past few years, we've offered POP access, which is similar to
IMAP but lacks one critical feature: your changes made on other devices
aren't seen in Gmail when you log back in. Instead you are presented
with a list of unread mail, and you must re-read and re-sort
everything. For this reason, as soon as I started at Google, IMAP was
one of the first things I asked about. Since then, I've seen countless
blog posts, requests, chats, and just about everything else asking,
"Are you guys ever going to do IMAP?" Well now I can say: Yes. Yes, we are doing IMAP. In fact, we are doing it for you for free on all devices and platforms.

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GOOGLE Presentation great resource

Thanks to Danno pointing this out after my post on Google blogs next week the presentation is great haven't been easily able to find the group its linked to . Danno can you help find the blog ?? it stemmed from . But view the presentation its great !!

http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?fs=true&docid=ah4zsdj46b66_578cv4x7&pli=1


Its a technology that I think will change the way we work again !!
Made me think about how I use resources online to support presentations !! Off to lie down in a darkened room!!

What google blog says about Google presentations

Googles own blog say some interesting things

Not wanting anyone to feel left out, we've made the presentation feature available in 25 languages; Google Apps customers can also access it as part of Google Docs.

The new presentations feature of Google Docs helps you to easily
organize, share, present, and collaborate on presentations, using only
a web browser.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/our-feature-presentation.html

Whats also interesting that theyve done a video and interesting its on youtube and embedded in youtube player in the google blog. Interesting they didnt use googles own google video !! Look at the blog watch the video !!!

Blogging on a bus on the way back from Stansted !!

GOOGLE Presentation

Excuse the shouting I published a dodgy powerpoint of bad shots of Apple touch etc and Apple store in Glasgow on Google docs this morning I was surprised that I could. I then mention the to my fellow e enthusiast Rob Englebright and discovered they only launched it today been back a realise you can also create presentations in google docs and export them as zipped html to play locally !!! WOW WOW!!

Dont get me wrong its far from fully functioing powerpoint but with integration with google docs still quite cool!!!! Excuse the dodgy first attempt !!!

http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dc7bzghg_49ds2w8h&fs=true

Director of Research of Google at the ALT C Conference interview

Thanks to My Becta colleague Moritz Bilagher for sending this my way .

The article Sarah Lewthwaite on custom PC http://www.custompc.co.uk/features/601291/an-interview-with-googles-head-of-research.html

Article makes an interesting read and yes google people however important they are wear colourful verging on loud shirts !!!

Keep watching this blog for my own musings of spending 40 minutes chatting to peter at the conference dinner. I can totally dismiss rumours that my blogs sucess was viewed seriously by Google ;-))))))

Thanks to Frank Rennie for taking the photo.

First Iphone now the gphone or is it goophone !!!

Now is this start of a war of devices and approaches and if so will Microsoft follow with a hardware tie in.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6929537.stm

Reports suggest that the web giant is developing a series of"GPhones", centred on its mobile services, such as search, e-mail and maps.

In a statement, Google said it was working with carriers, phone makers and content providers to "bring its services to users everywhere".

I use google mail on my phone and google mobile search would I buy a gphone I might but lets see what's the offer .

Is this hardware software tie in by the likes of Apple and possibly google a new stage in development and a revolution or just a temporary blip !!

Whats your view .

Pageflakes - igoogle

Pageflakes - Get it Together Pages flakes forgot to blog about this and was reminded by Margaret Wallace its like personalised google home page or Igoogle sort of ! These service allowing viewing of your favourites,web gadgets etc is a real aid to mobile busy people and to be honest useful to learners. This is only the start of the personalised web

http://www.pageflakes.com/

Googles toolbar ability to embed your igoogle favourites in the browser bar is getting a lot of use me in my preferred browser firefox and i gather it works with IE to

Strap in its going to be a web 2.0 roller coaster ride

Google Mobile suite picassa is added to the list

Now I already use the gmail application on my phone and its great for reading mail on a nokia 6234 . Its OK for sending short replies . But they've done it again and added picassa googles digital image manipulator and storage offer to their range of phone apps going to give it a go. It also looks like a linkage between Picasa and google maps has been made proto geotagging possibly !! Google Mobile

Analysis traffic on blogs

Regular readers will know I have been using clustrmaps to track number of visitors a day and where they are from. You can see clustrmaps graphic in my sidebar. I also want to tell readers that for the last week or so I have started using google analytics to track visits in a more detailed way.
Well after a false start a month ago ( poor insertion of code on my part) I got it working earlier this week and its great. Just yesterday the upgraded http://analytics.blogspot.com/
so if your interested in checking traffic , type of devices etc check it out.

life imitating art or is Google imitatting Skype video calls on google talk

Well I use both Skype and Google talk they are both good ;-).
If this article is to believed google are lining up google talk to have video added to it just like Skype has had for 18 months ( I think its that long!).
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131048-c,webtelephonyconferencing/article.html
Interesting times