It’s refreshing to see so many people just being themselves and sharing a very unique experience.  One day I hope to make the trip to Burning Man.  Until then, videos like this will have to hold me over.

I woke up Sunday morning and found nothing readily available in the house to eat.  Normally I would settle on toast and peanut butter in this situation, but I was feeling a bit adventurous.  I had a decent collection of raw ingredients in the cabinets for once and figured if Hardee’s can make fresh biscuits, so can I.  I did a quick Google search and settled on J.P.’s Big Daddy Biscuits largely due to the name and the fact that I owned all the ingredients.

Everything was going swimmingly.  It seemed that I was on course to achieve biscuit nirvana on my first ever attempt.  After kneading the dough I realized I had made a critical error.  I needed a round cookie-cutter – which I do not own.  The recipe says you can flour a juice glass and use that instead, but that just seemed… well… boring.

I was distraught.  Staring down at this ball of dough to which I’d given birth, I knew it deserved better than a juice glass.  It deserved to make a statement, to scream “I am breakfast, but I will not be round!”  Suddenly, inspiration struck.  I remembered that when I bought my tin Star Wars lunch box from Williams-Sonoma it came with two sandwich cutters.  One in the shape of a TIE Interceptor and another of the Millennium Falcon.  Biscuit nirvana was still within reach.

The results are what you see in the image above (save for the bottom-left blob – it was just leftover dough).  Once they cooled enough to eat, I slathered a Falcon in strawberry preserves, “flew” it toward my mouth, and right before I bit down I imagined a little Obi-Wan saying “that’s no moon…”

Last month, Google announced it would be deprecating their Translations service (along with other APIs) due to an unsustainable economic burden.  From the Google Translate API page:

Important: The Google Translate API has been officially deprecated as of May 26, 2011. Due to the substantial economic burden caused by extensive abuse, the number of requests you may make per day will be limited and the API will be shut off completely on December 1, 2011. For website translations, we encourage you to use the Google Translate Element.

This begs the question “are any Google services economically sustainable?”  Google cites abusive use as the cause of the burden – but is that just the result of a popular and much-needed service?  How are those companies/developers who make use of this service going to adapt?

Google isn’t leaving us completely out to dry.  They say that due to public outcry, a pay version of the API will be made available.  This should cut down on extraneous uses and will prevent certain applications from falling apart entirely – if you can pay.  However, it feels like a drug-dealer saying “first one’s free” then once you’re hooked, jacking up the price.  As much fun as technology is, and as much as Google loves to give us cool toys to play with, no company wants to give away a product for free unless there is something to gain.  This is a case of ideological wishes meeting the harsh reality of economics.

Let’s imagine that Google Cloud Print (GCP) takes off and finds great success in both the consumer and the enterprise environments.  The team I lead at work develops custom software for customers around the globe.  So let’s say our customers start integrating GCP into their workflows and it becomes part of their daily lives.  As it grows in popularity, Google finds itself in another economically unsustainable situation and moves to a pay model.  Who eats this cost?  The company who created the solution (ie, my team) or the company who bought it understanding there was no additional cost (ie, my customer)?  Neither is a very appealing option.

My concern here, truly, is more for Google than those using their APIs.  Hopefully, what Google has done with Translate is a fringe case and will not be the norm.  One wonders, though, how many fringe cases it would take for companies to become hesitant to use Google’s offerings.  If there is even the slightest chance I may be signing myself up for an unknown cost down the road, will I take that risk?

While perusing my tumblr feed I came across a TED Talk I felt I should share.  In it, Eli Pariser, author of “The Filter Bubble” (Paper, Kindle, Nook), talks about how a personalized Internet experience may be narrowing our world view.  In the video Pariser points out that, without notifying us, Google and Facebook both pre-filter our search results/news feed and tailor the results to what is most in-line with our personal preferences.  Google can even do this if you aren’t logged in – as it displays search results based on 57 “signals” ranging from what kind of computer you’re using to where you’re sitting (home, coffee shop, work, etc).

Interestingly enough, Google just today updated Google News for “more variety and multimedia”.  From the site (emphasis is my doing):

Personalized top stories: The Top Stories section is expanded to six or more stories from three to give you more topic diversity. The first three stories remain unpersonalized and the same as before. The rest may be personalized based on your interests. To personalize your Google News experience you can click on “Edit” under “News for you.” You can choose the “Standard Edition” if you don’t want personalization.

So it appears that Google is started to apply this personalization algorithm to the top stories segment of Google News.  It will be interesting to see how long the unpersonalized stories remain after they’ve had a chance to analyze traffic and see which users prefer.

So the question becomes, is this an acceptable way for us to get our world view?  In a society that is becoming more and more fundamentally conflicted, is it wise to feed the masses only that which will go down easily or should we be challenged to suffer some intellectual indigestion from time to time?  Further, would it be any more “right” to force people to see views that conflict with their own?  Is the problem what is presented or the fact there’s no way to opt out of it?  I’d love some discussion around this.  I don’t believe there is a clear-cut answer, as there are certainly pros and cons for either side.

Regardless, I’ll certainly be adding “The Filter Bubble” to my reading list.

I had never heard of Google I/O before this year.

I may never forgive myself.

This developer-centric conference is the mecca for all Google/Android followers, with two days of live sessions and sandboxes covering everything from “Best Practices for Accessing Google APIs on Android” to “Don’t just build a mobile app. Build a business.”  Google also takes this opportunity to introduce us to the latest in their mobile operating systems as well as letting us peek under the covers to see what’s around the corner.

As for what’s next, Google doesn’t disappoint.  We were shown the Chromebooks, introduced to Google’s new music streaming service, and teased with Android@Home.  While the first two topics are enough to make most technophiles giddy with excitement, this post is going to focus on Android@Home.  Here’s the actual presentation from Google I/O for those interested.  Cliff notes version: Google wants to make every electronic device and appliance in your home an I/O device.  From your Android phone or tablet you’ll be able to control your lighting, stereo, appliances, and even your thermostat eventually.  In the video, Joe Britt mentions a few ideas for this technology.  One is an alarm clock that slowly raises the lights and begins to play your favorite music to wake you up.  Another, and the one I’m most excited about, is augmenting the gaming experience.

I’m not a hardcore gamer – mostly I casually roam the occasional MMO and have a blast in Portal/Portal 2.  However, the idea of making the game playing experience more immersive immediately caught the attention of my theatrical side.

Surely we can make gaming a bit more immersive than this.

The game I’m probably most familiar with is World of Warcraft, so let’s start there.  In the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, you must leave the comfy confines of the Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, and Outlands to face a terrible evil in the frozen lands of Northrend.  Most of us huddled in front of our monitors on release night, anxious to explore this icy realm and bring justice to Arthas.  Blizzard’s artists did a fantastic job bringing this area to life and giving it a feel unique to what players had experienced so far in WoW.  However, as with any game, the immersion was limited to the sights and sounds before you.

The Howling Fjord

Now imagine that your character is on the deck of an Alliance boat, sailing to this new continent.  As the ship pulls from the dock your fan turns on without you actually hitting the switch.  You hear the boat cutting through the water,  you see the mist thicken around you, and actually feel the wind on your face.  During your journey you start to shiver.  Not from the awe-inspiring images on the screen, but rather, the temperature has  been slowly falling due to your thermostat being slowly adjusted.  By the time you find yourself sailing between the frozen cliffs of the Howling Fjord, the chilly air portrayed on the screen has invaded your home and  has you reaching for a blanket.

Let’s switch gaming genres and see what else Android@Home can do for us.  Another popular game released in the last few years is Bioshock, a first-person shooter.  While World of Warcraft is an MMO designed to take you across realms to an entirely new world where cows walk on their hind legs and the dead walk amongst us, Bioshock exists largely within a location that could very well be a part of our reality – which makes any attempt at immersion that much more powerful.  In the next example, we’ll go through an in-game scenario as it exists today, and then run it again with some immersive flavor added.

Gamer's Tip: She is not your friend.

In Bioshock, you find yourself the sole survivor of an oceanic plane crash (sorry, no islands involved) fighting your way through a domed, underwater city called Rapture.  As you come to discover, Rapture was built by a wealthy scientist who wanted to create a civilization free of the confines of morals and religion; which, by his measure, prohibited proper scientific advancement.  Of course, you have missed the heyday of this city by quite a large margin.  Instead of rubbing elbows with some of the greatest scientific minds of your generation, you’re in a leaky, dark, and pretty much evil deathtrap of a city where you spend as much time admiring the art deco design as you do trying to keep splicers from tearing your limbs off.

Early on, you make your way into a half-flooded hospital and, more specifically, the morgue.  Due to the disrepair Rapture now finds itself in, the cold ocean water is up to your waist and the only light you can see is coming from around the corner up ahead.  Unfortunately, this light is casting a shadow of someone who appears to be hacking into a body on the floor.

As you approach the corner, you see the head of the shadow quickly turn your way, and just as you register this, the light goes out leaving you standing in the dark waiting for an attack.  A few seconds later, the light returns, but the person who was so vigorously tearing into a presumed corpse has vanished.  This is not good.  When you round the corner, your initial suspicions are confirmed by the sight of a mangled body – but the assailant is nowhere to be found.  Aside from the dripping of water, and the errant splash or creak, barely anything can be heard.  You turn to leave, but just before you can exit the morgue, the missing assailant bursts out of a morgue drawer ready to make you his next patient.  The doctor is in.

The tension of this chain of events cannot be overstated.  You are practically holding your breath as you approach the corner, and then once discovered and the enemy disappears, panic begins to set in.  Naturally, we need to take this a step further (let’s really earn that M rating).

Just as described above, you’re wading toward a shadowy figure in a flooded morgue lit by only one light.  As you approach, not only does the light source on the screen go out when you are discovered, but the lights in the room you’re playing in do as well.  You find yourself sitting in the dark with only the sound of dripping water to keep you company.  This time the dripping sounds are coming from more than just your computer speakers.  Since A@H knows where your stereo is, where your TV is, and where your radios are, you hear the sounds of Rapture leaking all around you – down the hall, behind you, and even coming from your living room.  The lights flicker back to life and you push forward, only this time, you hear the missing enemy moving around.  Down your hallway, in your living room, or right behind you from a radio on a shelf.

After such an intense moment you need to step away and you get up to grab a drink from the fridge.  As you enter your living room and head toward the kitchen, you see something out of the corner of your eye and nearly jump out of your skin.  It’s a splicer who appears to have just dashed through your home.  You dive for cover and then shake your head to make sure you’re awake.  You wonder, if only briefly, if the game has followed you into your home.  In reality, A@H knows you’re in this room from the Android phone in your pocket, and has turned on your TV and played a video of a splicer darting by when you were within sight of it.

We have accomplished a couple of interesting things here.  We immersed the player deeper into the fantasy lands of World of Warcraft and made them question their sanity as Bioshock’s Rapture appeared to be invading their home – all with the same piece of technology.  These scenarios do take liberty with what A@H could do and assumes it has an understanding of the location of your controllable appliances as well as the location of the player.  As Google has only given the slightest indication of what to expect, I think it’s entirely fair to hypothesize to the extreme.  In fact, I think that is one of the main goals of Google I/O if not Google at large – provide high function, low barrier to entry technologies and see how far the tech can be pushed and in what creative ways they are utilized.  I’m excited to see where Android@Home goes and in what ways developers push it beyond what even Google envisioned.

Although, to be honest, I'm not sure I want this guy controlling my thermostat.