Tech Thirst  by anuj ahooja

Facebook will reportedly be part of one of the biggest Wall Street IPOs in history, as the company is reportedly filing paperwork as early as next Wednesday to go public. Facebook will reportedly be valued somewhere between $75 billion to $100 billion.

No, you didn’t read that wrong.

“we’re trying to move from answers that are link-based to answers that are algorithmically based, where we can actually compute the right answer.”

We’re seeing this more and more on Google. They want to be an answer engine first, search engine second. Searching something like the weather or a math equation gives you the answer straight away so you don’t even need to click on links. In fact, I’ve even noticed that sometimes if I search for a theater, it’ll not only give me the location but also the show times for that day. Really fascinating the direction they’re going with this. Soon, Google’s algorithm won’t need to make you search – it’ll give you the answer. It’ll know when to give you socially curated (Search Plus Your World) answers and when to give you information-based answers. We already have intelligent local-based search; social and resource-based search are right around the corner. Then right after that? Local, social, and resource answers.

It seems to me that Siri is slowly entering this area of ‘nice to show but not actually useful’. I know a quite few people with an iPhone 4s and I asked around a bit and they all almost regretfully acknowledge that they, in fact, don’t really use it anymore, once you get beyond the newness of it all.

Yeah, most people I’ve asked say the same thing. They basically only use it when someone asks “hey, does that have Siri?” but never otherwise. Why? Well, because to get something right you have to repeat it to Siri 2-3 times. Might as well type it in if it’s going to make you go through all that frustration. But, like I’ve said again and again, it’ll take time and tons of users to improve Siri (hopefully). And I still stand by the fact that Google will probably do a significantly better job of this.

Amazing overview and analysis on Google’s new direction. Russell really nails it.

users will not be able to use their own images as the background of the Start Screen. The reason? It might not lead to a high-quality experience. Instead, users will be allowed to pick from packaged options.

Wow. Don’t know how much I like that. I dislike the fact that companies are taking this restrictive route nowadays. Give the user a choice, leave them some warnings, and let them decide what’s best. A little notification that let’s them know that adding their own wallpaper will ruin their experience is all that’s necessary – why get rid of the feature completely?

Google just updated their privacy policy to create one single document for all of their products. This is a big step towards their goal to create a single product with multiple tools. But as integration continues, I’m interested to see what new sub-products come out of it. Either way, Google, as a single product, is getting better for the user day by day.

I’m sure you’ve seen it everywhere, but…wow. I may rip on them very often but Apple has undeniably taken the world by storm. They were once the “other” company and have now grown into “the” company. I truly do hope that they continue with this success under the leadership of Tim Cook.

Phil Nickinson of Android Central:

Packingham said “When you wake up to when you go to bed, we don’t want you feeling anxiety about your battery life.” The transition to the quote says Samsung’s goal for smartphones coming out this year is all-day use under average to moderately heavy use. [...] Samsung’s working on better battery life in 2012. So is Motorola. So is HTC. So is LG. So is Lenovo. So is ASUS. So is Toshiba. So is NVIDIA. So is Qualcomm. So is Intel. Everybody is working on better battery life, every day of the week. Right [now] we just have to be content with baby steps.

Nails it. Couldn’t have said it better myself. If this wasn’t their goal up till now, that’s a serious problem.

Wow, now this is news. Apparently Amazon’s ready to compete in another market, and that’s site search. With Microsoft is aiming at Google with Bing web search and Amazon targeting Google’s site search product, it looks like Google has very little room to breathe. Although this is great for users, it puts Google in a position where they have be really careful about their next move, something they’ve never had to worry about with search.

 “I have a lower success rate with Siri than I do with the voice built into the Android, and that bothers me,” Woz says. “I’ll be saying, over and over again in my car, ‘Call the Lark Creek Steak House,’ and I can’t get it done. Then I pick up my Android, say the same thing, and it’s done. Plus I get navigation. Android is way ahead on that.”

Exactly. I’ve tried Siri a few times and was left seriously underwhelmed. With all the hype it’s gotten, it’s really, really disappointing. That being said, NLP is something that needs time and massive amounts of different user interaction to perfect; in other words – the more people that use Siri, the better Siri gets. I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is marketing that it works perfectly. And I still stand by my opinion that Google is going to do this significantly better in the near future.

I’d like to end with another quote from Mr. Wozniak:

“I love the beauty of [the iPhone]. But I wish it did all the things my Android does, I really do.”

So what’ll be? Pretty or powerful? I think I’ll stick with the latter; after all, it’s power that gets the work done.

Now here’s an interesting turn of events. Samsung plans on merging their low-end Bada operating system with Tizen, the OS project rooted from Samsung Linux Platform and the dead MeeGo project (which was rooted from the dead Moblin & Maemo projects). Yeah, Tizen definitely has a long-winded (failing) history to it. According to the article:

 it appears the open source OS will figure in the lower portion of the company’s portfolio. The true high end will remain dedicated to Android and Windows Phone for the foreseeable future.

Wait. That doesn’t make much sense. Yes, Bada was originally an OS created by Samsung for their low-end smartphones, while they used Android and Windows Phone as their high-end operating sytems. That all falls in line with that statement. However, Tizen is not meant to be a low-end platform; Tizen, and it’s predecessor Meego, was always meant to compete with Android, iOS, and Windows Phone.

Is Samsung starting to place bets on any high-end OS they can? Although Google and Motorola promise a “no hands-on” acquisition, Samsung must still be nervous about it, regardless of what you and I think ,and what Google means to do with the hardware company. And with Microsoft playing closely with Nokia, clearly Samsung knows it’s second fiddle, at least at the moment. Maybe Samsung just wants to be a sure power-player in one OS in case things begin to fall through and they need a plan B…or C in this case.

It’s about three years late, but Google has finally released design guidelines for Android. This particular page on “Pure Android” that was pointed out to me by my Plus-buddy, David Shellabarger, discusses the differences between Android, iOS, and Windows Phone design. This is the line that made me want to share this:

As you build your app for Android, don’t carry over themed UI elements from other platforms and don’t mimic their specific behaviors.

There are way too many developers that don’t follow this rule. Design for Android on Android, for iOS on iOS, and so on and so forth. Emulation only brings bad UX for your application. Imagine if a software designer decided it would be a good idea to put their window controls on the left for a Windows application. Not fun, right? Exactly.