Kyle Brady: A Blog

Everyone’s complaining about GOOG411 these days. The real question is: why?

Google has a habit of releasing their new products whenever they feel like it, and in what they consider a BETA stage. (In reality, the products are more like a fully developed v1.0, but that’s beside the point.) After a unusually short gestation period, the products are removed from BETA and advertised in some fashion to the general public… and destroy the competition.

Everyone in the tech industry/Silicon Valley knows this. So when GOOG-411 became more than a semi-unknown secret, why did people come out of nowhere with a bunch of complaints? Not only are many of their complaints stupid and pointless, they’re also not even related to how wonderful the service is.

Stop it. Bad evil lizard.

Until now, if you wanted a 411/info service that was free, you had to call a number that was either heavily ad supported, or not of a high caliber. Until now, only people “in the know” were aware of Google’s phone services (GOOG-411, and the text message version… send a message to “GOOGL”).

Here’s how it works:

1. You call GOOG-411
2. You hear a very enthusiastic voice saying the name of the service
3. A soothing voice asks you for a city and state
4. It again asks you for what you’re looking for
5. It tells you the results
6. You can have the number texted to you
7. You can hear more information about the place
8. You can have it auto-dial the number

What, in the name of Odin, is wrong with that? I have never once encountered an advertisement. I have never thought “hmm that was totally annoying and a terrible service, because for 3.5 seconds at the beginning someone said the name of what I just called”. The only thing I’ve ever thought was “Oh, sweet. It gave me the number I wanted as the first result, and I didn’t have to memorize it to call them! Thanks, Google!”

The dog version of Google.

So here’s my general comment to all of you: Stop Complaining. It’s free. It’s Google. It’s much more than adequate… it’s great. Until you build something of significant status, you’re only allowed to complain when the service/product is not as advertised.

And in this case, it is exactly as advertised.

posted on October 2nd, 2007 at 8:36 pm by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Business, Google, Rant, Technology

Cracked.com has an unusually insightful and thoughtful writeup on the potential future of gaming…

Scientists, engineers, and futurists alike have been predicting the rise of a new generation of gaming for years. Embedded systems on a human body part? Truly self-creating video games? Virtual reality that (for once) rivals actual reality? These are all things that people have not only been predicting, but wanting for almost as many years as any of the precursors of the future have been around.

The Neverending Story? Didn’t it …end… though?

“Spore”, a computer game referenced in the writeup, is a game that self-generates and self-populates, and then shares your data across the internet with other people, so they can interact with the beings/worlds/situations you create. I can’t find it at the moment, but there was a video on YouTube a few months ago with Robin Williams (yes, the comedian… apparently also a huge gaming nerd) demoing it for a crowd at some gaming conference.

Take the concept of “world sharing” and combine it with the power and networking of XBOX360. Then apply it to a more advanced game like… say, Starcraft. Visualize it. Pretty impressive, right?

This is the direction Microsoft (at least the games division) is trying to guide the world-at-large into. It’s pretty obvious when you look at the facts: massive internal hard drive, more processing power than the average person’s desktop computer, a huge centralized internet-based network, and a graphics system that was under-utilized until Halo3 was released.

Don’t believe me? Think about some of your favorite games. Can you buy and trade items/characters/maps/other data? Can you communicate vocally with almost anyone on the network? Have you ever experienced a major crash of the network (besides the Halo3 release day)? Can you have your games auto-update?

Right.

Now, imagine all of that… embedded in your head. A chip in your jaw for vocal transference (either sub-vocalization or normal… sounds travel through bone). A chip above your ear for audio broadcasting to your eardrum. A chip above/in/next-to your eye for visual display (HUD-style).

Don’t think that’s impressive? Take the Moore’s Law principle, and apply it to computers. We currently can pack four processors into the space where once processor previously existed… this is up from one just a few short years ago. By the time ten or fifteen years roll around, computers that rival “Big Blue” will fit in a very small space… maybe even small enough to go in a chip the size of an RFID tag.

Joystick of The Future?

I’m ready for the day when you can kill high resolution, self generating, AI enabled aliens in the middle of a boring meeting… without anyone knowing. Aren’t you?

posted on October 2nd, 2007 at 7:04 pm by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Future, Gaming, Technology, The Internet