Google I/O 2013 Underway: Watch For Updates 115
After some splashy demos of Android apps and Chrome (Pong played with active windows as the playing pieces is one that stuck out) Vic Gundotra, Senior VP opens the show. Welcomes the 6000 people here, and 40,000 people at viewing parties world wide. (More than a million on YouTube, he says.)
Introduces Sundar Pichai SVP: Android, Chrome, Apps, who reviews the time since the PC revolution: Most people used Windows, boring form factors. Starting seven or so years ago, phones, tablets, etc, really jumped. Two pictures from St. Peter's Basilica: John Paul II's funeral, vs. announcement of new pope: In the first, one person is taking a photo with a clamshell phone; in the second, everyone has a phone or tablet out to record the event. Chrome, he says, is now the most popular browser in the world.
Then it's time for more splashy demo: map shows how much of the world has a penetration of less than 10 percent. Bringing the next four and a half billion" online the next theme.
New Android features and APIs:
Hugo Barro, VP, Product Management Android, shows off some of the new features for developers:
- First, an improved Google Maps Android API (v2), with 3-D building outlines, fast scrolling, etc. A fused location provider, more battery efficient, faster -- should mean less waiting for GPS signals etc. for mapping.
- A new API for activity recognition uses various sensors etc. to track and notice things like whether a user is driving, walking, or doing other activities. Looks both very useful and a bit scary; opt-out needs some attention on this front!
- Google+ sign-in updates and cross-platform single-sign-in. Now users "don't have to remember to find and install" certain apps, because signing in and downloading it on one device can activate doing the same on linked devices.
- Google Cloud Messaging came out last year; this year, it's been updated to give more upstream capabilities. Lets you push data from a service to an app. Upstream messaging, GCM to send messages. Syncs notifications (good for developers, but also for users: if you dismiss a notification on one device, it goes away on all account-linked devices.)
Barro also introduces Google Play game services, and some of its features:
- Cloud save; you can finish a game level on one device, and pick up on it on another.
- Achievements, leaderboards to connect players. Demos with World of Goo, shows how one can instantly check one's status among friends (fun), and globally (humbling) for a particular game.
- Multi-player. Feature announced to huge applause, but demo failed, despite the intent to overcome the very things that make multiplayer games hard for mobile. (This room, he says, isn't very "network friendly" -- true, but then, neither is a huge chunk of the world.)
Shows off a new IDE, Android Studio (big applause, just at the name) for a quick demo. Has some neat features; colors used in code, for instance are parsed and shown in thumbnail next to the line that contains it. Devices' screens can be demoed instantly, on the developer's desktop screen, so developers can see how an app will appear on different sized devices, and in different languages, useful for internationalization and cross-platform building.
For a few dollars more (per month)
Chris Yerga, Engineering Director for Android's most exciting announcement: Google Play Music All Access. This is a $9.99/month subscription service, with a 30-day free trial, launching today. Hook: if you start by June 30th, $7.99.
It's an online streaming music app, music organizer, and music suggestion engine.
Personalized recommendations based on listening habits, and eavesdropping on opted-in friends' lists. Yergo demonstrates that the playlist which it can create shows the *upcoming* choices that the AI bots at Google think you'll want to listen to; the look into the upcoming playlist got many happy shouts, even more so when he shows unwanted items in that list just being wiped off the list with gestures.
Linus on Chrome
(Sorry, not that Linus.) Linus Upson talked about Chrome, and focused on APIs for mobile web. Started with JavaScript speed improvements; says Javascript can be now rendered 57 percent faster through optimizations than this time last year, with "tons more optimizations to come."
Notes that When you download a web page, more than 60pct of the stuff downloaded is images and shows some examples of WebP - open source, royalty-free compression -- with similar quality image compression results at 30+ percent smaller than JPEG. It features like transparency, metadata, etc, and "unfortunately also animated images." But video is the real hog; more than animated cat pictures, there's a need to make video smaller. Upson shows H.264 vs VP9 -- for the demo video shown, 343 vs 125MB for equivalent quality; this will be rolling out for YouTube later this year.
Shows a data compression proxy tool with a user-facing chart on Chrome for Mobile, shows how much data you're using (or saving) by turning on a remote data compression tool.
Another: Using HTML5 autocomplete spec, shows a simple checkout system vs. the typical complex one required to buy from any online merchant with whom a user does not already have an account. "Chrome already knows all your payment information," he says. "This is going to make shopping from your phone much, much easier." (And scarier, IMO.)
Cool Chrome demo: Racer: a Multi player, multi-platform game experiment; stylized, overhead view of a slot-car racing setup; all you need to play is a device running Chrome. (Players have only one thing to control: their cars' speed. Go too fast on a curve, and the car flies off.( The coolest part of the demo, is that various devices places next to each other (tables of various sizes, phones) combine to form a single playing screen across the devices.
Mark of the friendly beast, now for kids!
Chris Yerga back on stage to introduce Google Play for Education. Launching in the fall (apps being accepted starting this summer), for "awesome K-12 apps." This is a single purpose, curated sub-store, with all apps intended for primary and secondary education, and approved by / endorsed by groups of teachers, "because teachers trust other teachers," with apps from private developers, schools, government entities like NASA. Sounds nice, in some ways, but also takes every kid in the schools covered having a Google account, and being part of Google groups. This will take a lot of opt-in-by-proxy. Google does a lot of things well, but should kids be required to have accounts with a particular company to use software required for education? Even with vetting, malware in this context looks particularly troubling.
6,000 new toys, all alike.
Looks like attendees at this year's I/O will land a Pixel laptop running ChromeOS.
Google+ at the age of a late-stage toddler
New design for Google+, and "41 new features," rolling out this afternoon.
User-facing features included Animated sliding menus, animated windows, and other such UI candy.
More depth to be made available through automatic tagging applied by Google to posts; "We also then rank and search the entire universe of Google Plus content, and we rank it just for you."
This automatic hashtagging includes not just text scanning for content, but image recognition; coupled with landmark recognition engine that already exists, a photo of the Eiffel tower is automatically recognized; clicking on that photo can being you to more Eiffel-tower related photos. A little spooky.
You will always have the option of telling Google, either on a particular post, or globally" whether you want to opt-out of all this automatic scanning, tagging, and ranking.
Re: richer communications: "Frankly, even Google's services have been fragmented." Introducing today, new Google+ Hangout app, broken out from general Google+ service. Demo shows how new standalone app by default shows a list of conversations, "not contacts." Group or one-on-one. Contacts are "one tap away," if you want a different lens. The conversations can be long lasting; you can have a group conversation with lots of people, photos, etc. "Of course we give you the ability to turn off history!" Photos attached to conversations are stored in albums. Shown (the slipped-in applause line) on iOS, in a web browser, and on Android.
New features include, too, group video at no charge. And, with the tagline "your darkroom is now a datacenter," cloud-based photo management, with tools for photo retouching and editing, not just storage / backup.
New Auto-Enhance tool which throws photos against a wall of image enhancement algorithms (for tonal distribution, noise reduction, vignetting, sharpening, etc.) A bit like Instagram in simplicity, but with the intent to make photos look "just right" rather than "vintage." Slightly creepy, to have the equivalent of an automatic airbrush on photos.
Somewhat creepier, an automatic highlights-reel creator that does a different kind of automatic enhancement: feed it a few hundred photographs, and AI bots look for smiling faces, good focus, etc, and Google tells you which ones to leave on the cutting-room floor. A nice triage step, but one that will need human scanning in case your opinion differs from the Google AI.
Finally, Auto Awesome: "creates a new image that did not exist!" -- scans for similar, related photos, creates mini movies of them.
The available gratis storage for Google accounts has this week gone to 15 GB rather than free. That will be a lot of storage for some people (my mom), not so much for others (you know who you are). All these neat back-end photo enhancement tools require as much bandwidth as it takes to transmit your photos up and down whatever pipe you're using for that, though. Local photo manipulation isn't going away; it's just being nudged gently by the online adjuncts.
OK computer
Amit Singhal announces what he says is "the end of search as we know it"; the upshot is moving to natural language (whether typed ina search box or spoken into a mic), emphasizing intuition and eroding the need for special searching tricks.
Coolest new thing about search: Search by voice coming to all platforms via Chrome. Talk to your computer; let google answer.
Cards (cute, compact single-topic search result capsules) were shown last year, but now enhanced with more categories and examples -- things like games, books, and public transit commute times.
Search & Assist VP Johanna Wright steps up to demo this voice feature, labeled "Hotwording." "OK Google, show me things to do in Santa Cruz" gets search results richer than plain google search, and "OK Google, how far is it from here?" Gets a link to directions and map, Google Maps' version is the nicely formatted direction source, but the search results include other on-topic hits, too. I can see some SNL sketches showing everyone mumbling to Google as they walk down the street, on Segways, wearing Glass headsets. "OK Google ... OK Google ... "
You are here, or you are someplace else.
Daniel Graf on next generation of google aps for mobile. Last December, they launched maps on iPhone: "sleek, beautiful, and let's not forget, accurate." [Laughline]
Today, announcement / sneak peak at next gen version (due out this summer), for both Android and iOS. "Let's go on a little walk in San Francisco."
3D buildings, smooth scrolling, and a 5-star rating system now integrated across all map products -- phone, web, etc -- as a first-class option.
Also -- nice, but a little pat -- integrating "The Zagat experience" integrated with maps searches, too; because "it's nice to have an expert opinion." Also integrated, and in my view also a bit off-putting, special offers related to searches. Starbucks is one company in on this action "but there are many many more."
Fun stats: Over a million transit stops. 50 billion km of turn-by-turn directions for bikes.
Adding live coverage of incident alerts around the world. Dynamic rerouting; if something happens ahead on a scheduled route, navigation app for smart phones will alert the user.
Mobile today, just just about phones, too: brand now, fully-integrated map interface for tablets. "Explore" option lets you browse maps through categories like Eat, Relax, etc. Empashsis on exploration and discovery.
Adding more and more inside views for buildings.
Maps now better labeled, and more directly -- no more jillions of pins to mouse-over for pop-ups. Searching maps integrating more social data (like looking for places that friends have reviewed positively), and many more businesses now have fly-through photo imagery available.
Public transit options much more prominent, directly on map when looking for directions. Most exciting to me, the new scheduling visualizer shows when trains, buses, ferries, etc. will be leaving, and how long each trip takes. Beautiful Gantt-chart UI; simple, scrollable timelines.
More and more interior imagery (inside St. Peter's, etc), but (biggest crowd pleasing moment so far), you can also zoom out as well as in, until you get to a whole Earth globe, from space. Spinnable, with physics. And those clouds? The gloating announcement "Those are in real time." The fawning and clapping continue, as even more zoom continues. View the earth in Eclipse, the Milky Way, etc. Jaw-dropping as a browser-based experience.
Heeeeeere's Larry!
Larry Page's voice is softer and more labored, but he's on stage talking, to great applause.
On the future of Google Fiber, Larry says: "from an engineering standpoint, it's kind of a no-brainer." In a sense, most of the computers we have in the world, most of them are in people's shouses; msot fo them can't be used for anything useful." (I'll take that as creative license.)
"We need these low latency connections that operate a computer speed, no matter what that is."
Encourages other companies to do more things "outside their comfort zone," with both Fiber and Gmail as an example. Cross-pollication. "Almost every time we've tried to something crazy, we've made progress."
Has some politic but unflattering things to say about Oracle, but hedges on the question of how Oracle's tightening control on Java affects Android.
Page made at least five references to untapped efficiencies in transportation; I keep expecting Elon Musk to drive up the auditorium's center aisle in a Tesla in Google Street View livery.
Healthcare: Why are people so cagey about medical history? Insurance, he surmises -- afraid they don't be covered. "We should change the rules around insurance, so they have to insure people," he says, drawing great applause.
DNA Sequencing, we're all gonna have that, it'll cost a dollar ..." To a followup question, he says that he has nothing to announce on this front from Google, though. On the company's own health care initaitves? "We had Google Health, we didn't make that much proress on it ... [It's only] one percent of where we can be."
On women in the development community: Says this is a serious concern. He and Sergey, he says, want "to make sure out company doesn't end up all male." Encouraging young girls to be interested is the key.
Well, as long as they fix android's bluetooth (Score:1)
Seriously, one day, an android device will have bluetooth that actually works. I've never had a device that wasn't borked in some way!
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Pretty much every mainstream device from the G1 upwards - there's always been something broken in them - to summarize in time order (oldest at the top):
* Repeated failed connections causing a device reboot
* Multiple connections randomly being dropped
* Failing to connect more than 1 bluetooth connection at a time
* 100% CPU usage of BTLD after a bluetooth enabled app is shutdown by the VM (or you system.exit())
* Random hanging of the connect() method indefinately
And the most recent killer for me:
* Encrypted c
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In my experience, all HTC phones are horrible when it comes to bluetooth. But it could easily be argued that this is isolated to HTC, because HTC uses their own bluetooth stack on all phones, and it is known to be inferior (for example, you can't use wiimotes HTC phones, whereas they work fine with AOSP.)
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I have a galaxy s2 and just in general this is by far the most glitchy phone I've ever owned.
Android 4.2 broke the Wiimote Controller app (Score:2)
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My Nexus 4 bluetooth works perfectly for playing music and making phone calls. I haven't tried other uses of bluetooth though.
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DId they add BTLE to the OS? (Score:2)
One thing I can't seem to find info on is if they added BTLE support to the Android core. Currently even though a lot of hardware supports BTLE (like the Nexus) only Samsung phones ship with libraries that support talking to BTLE (Bluetooth 4.0 low energy) devices.
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Of course, "anecdote" isn't the singular form of "data"
Not to split hairs, but an anecdote is very much a single point of data.
I think you were looking for "the plural of anecdote isn't data", which isn't quite the same thing ... :)
I've tried to like Google's Glass product... (Score:3, Insightful)
...but I've failed on this front!
Question is: What am I not getting?
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I'm guessing you don't like digital watches either. Some people feel comfortable wearing those too. Really.
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What exactly is wrong with a digital watch?
Please explain in a manner that does not just say "I am a teenage girl and as such more worried about what others think than functionality".
I do not wear any watch, I have a smartphone that does this job fine.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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I think it is because we have not mastered the analog 24 hour watch for some reason.
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Please explain in a manner that does not just say "I am a teenage girl and as such more worried about what others think than functionality".
As a teenage girl, I am equally bewildered as I stare down at my digital watch.
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I do not wear any watch, I have a smartphone that does this job fine.
You wear a smartphone?
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:>(
as an aside comment, not all teenage girls are worried about what others think! As to wearing a watch, my parents don't even wear one, though my dad says he did when he was younger. Watches seem to be a grandparent generation thing to those of us still in school. Cell phones have time on them, and the class bells ring to let you know time's passing and that it's time to wake up and move on to the ne
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nothing
voice is a pretty crappy way to interact with a computer outside a movie
i can ask Siri how the Mets did last night, not that i need to
it will answer that they lost and the score. anything more i have to open an app
or i can open Team Stream or ESPN in the first place and read up lots of sports news, scores, etc
i like the second way a lot better, same with android and google glass. anything past a headline or a snippet you have to open an app.
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I agree on voice, but if you can use your smartphone to start some activity and have it stay on the glass device as a sort of hud that could be very handy.
Driving directions, stats while running or hiking, etc.
Re:I've tried to like Google's Glass product... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I've tried to like Google's Glass product... (Score:5, Informative)
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so what is it?
so far it looks like a $1500 gizmo to take photos and share them without people around me knowing what i'm doing
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Sounds like you are pretty clueless.
It has a nice light that lets everyone know you are taking pictures or recording and the price is for a dev kit not the end product.
Re:I've tried to like Google's Glass product... (Score:4, Informative)
so what is it?
It's a wearable always-on computing device with augmented reality capabilities. No, it isn't quite that yet, but the first cell phone was a heavy brick that ran out of battery in few hours. Early technology is (almost) always of questionable and limited usefulness.
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the first cell phone allowed people to make a phone call from their car
what does google glass do that i can't do with an iphone or galaxy s4?
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the first cell phone allowed people to make a phone call from their car
So did car phones.
what does google glass do that i can't do with an iphone or galaxy s4?
Hands free operation, inline with your regular vision.
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so what I can do that with a regular camera, some electrical tape and a tongue switch of some kind that I'd need to figure out.
...and people say Google Glass makes you look like a dope.
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Google glass lets you look like a douchebag all the time. With an iPhone or Galaxy S4, you only look like a douchebag some of the time.
Ladies and gentlemen - we have a winner!
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Have both hands free while recording sexcapades and such?
There's a Ski goggle HUD by Recon (and used by most of the ski goggle mfgs) that came to general retail last year. It connects to it's own wristworn ruggedized android computer and also can mirror your smartphone's screen. It's main purpose is as a GPS Ski map, phonecall headset. buddy locator, and performance recording (altitude, speed).
Their frontpage is showing a similar setup on a set of sunglasses (these with a built in camera) that would be coo
Re:I've tried to like Google's Glass product... (Score:5, Funny)
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Can I get my Google Monocle to link to my Google Tophat, Google Pocket Watch, and Google Sword/Taser Cane?
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i would buy a tazer/sword-cane when is that going to be released?
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Their still working on the Repeat/Sex Offender app that causes the handle to buzz when they get close, so it might be a while.
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ugg! They're. dammit.
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You're thinking about it in terms of now. What can you do with Google Glass? Well you can take a picture, get directions, view messages, and do searches hands free. It's not really worth it; too geeky, too expensive, too physically wonky to be worth it.
But what can you do with it 10 years from now? User your imagination a bit and I'm sure you can think of some ideas for always on camera/display combo. And in 10 years the geek, hassle, and cost factors will be way down with slimmer designs. Hell, conta
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Why did you feel the need?
At some point either Google Glass, or some other company's version, will be ready. Right now it's just a flashy gadget, and there are LOTS of flashy gadgets.
N.B.: The current version of Google Glass doesn't work with glasses. I've heard they're working on a way around that, but I haven't heard they've been successful. So that cuts out a reasonably large chunk of their potential users (including me).
oops (Score:3)
I think they just had a Bill Gates blue screen at a keynote experience.
Some google peeps on stage trying to demo the new Google Play game API for doing match making multiplayer and the service stopped working on them. Then go on to say "network environment here isn't friendly."
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Odds are that is true.
How many devices are all screaming on GSM, LTE, CMDA and wifi bands do you think are at that location? If we assume everyone has only a smartphone or glass we can say 1 per user, odds are it is more like 2-3 per.
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What do you mean?
I was assuming the demo device was an android device and the vast majority of those lack wired connections.
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While that sounds good it would not work, or at least not very well.
There will simply be too much noise on all wifi bands in the environment for that to be as functional as you hope. The issue is not other access points on that channel it is more the constant scanning all these devices will be doing and all the reflections that they will cause.
The right thing to do in this situation is to ask that all devices be turned off or put in airplane mode. Not all will comply, but enough to greatly improve performan
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The right thing to do in this situation is to ask that all devices be turned off or put in airplane mode. Not all will comply, but enough to greatly improve performance of the demo.
I don't think that's going to look very good from a company who is in the business of selling always on mobile gadgets! Given we didn't see the tablets there are things that I'm sure could have been done. Maybe a very close antenna in a partial Faraday cage, though I'm no electrical engineer.
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That would mean you can't show off the device.
Steve Jobs when faced with the same issue asked people to turn off devices, it was the correct move and it worked.
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Then please name it. Remember that they will want a live device and they will want to use it in a normal manner they can show off.
Apple had the same issue a few years ago and Steve Jobs correctly asked folks to turn off their devices. I guess acknowledging him to be correct now makes me an Apple cheerleader as well.
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Secure wireless does not get around a noisy environment. You can't deal with noise by adding encryption.
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Making the wireless network private doesn't do anything about the interference in the room on every available frequency which is actually causing the problem.
If you're Google, you can afford your own network. (Score:2, Interesting)
>> "network environment here isn't friendly"
#1: If you're Google, you should be able to afford your own reliable connection to the Internet, or even to home base, by your keynoter. Especially if you're going to pimp your marketing on SlashDot. Even if it means bribing the union folks at Moscone to let you do it your way.
#2: You think the network environment is ideal out near all those "other 4.5 billion"?
Re:If you're Google, you can afford your own netwo (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when everyone talked shit about Steve Jobs having a wireless problem during a keynote at the exact same venue, and everyone blasted Apple over that? Why do I have a feeling we won't see the same level of vitriol for this one?
News flash: You can't have 5,000 operating Wi-Fi radios in the same room and expect anything to work.
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5000 operating Wi-Fi radios in the same room would have no effect on a wired connection. The only reason not to use a wired connection is the lack of a cable. Not seeing an excuse here.
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Most mobile phones don't have Ethernet cables.
They do have USB, though, which Linux can do networking over just fine with an appropriate adapter. Works on Android sticks, should work just as fine on a phone/tablet.
A live demo on a phone....means wireless.
A live demo means you take reasonable precautions, especially if you're demoing a network application and you know in advance the wireless is going to be crap.
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You can do reverse-tethering over USB. That's what Apple does :) 100% possible on Android also.
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They didn't have any trouble doing phone and tablet demos over wifi (and it was definitely wifi, you could see the data transfer indicator symbol on the Android status bar). Somehow they seem to have come up with a solution to doing wifi demos in a large packed hall... Using channel 14 maybe?
The gaming network issues were unrelated I think.
Such a negative commentary. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the negative commentary? Why editorialise while posting? I understand people might not like Google, but to post your own opinions mixed into what is essentially the rolling news seems unnecessary and unprofessional. Surly such views are for the comments, as in to comment on the story?
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Because negativity draws clicks. This is what movie reviewers have known for decades and have exploited heavily. I honestly can't remember the last positive movie review I read.
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It's pretty standard here, and not just for Google. Somebody needs to get the fireball ball rolling. ("Surly such views" is an appropriate typo.)
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This.
Gods man. Can't you just keep your opinions to yourself and try to act like a reporter.
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I am actually astounded by the advances shown, even the ones that raise some red flags; just that they're being shown here means they have some pretty big upsides in the view of Google the company. You're seeing a (slightly) cleaned up stream-of-consciousness view from the floor, including a few off-the-cuff thoughts, but I don't think the upshot is negativity (sure isn't, in my head). That's really the nature of the site, though; watching the stream by itself gets you the unvarnished / un-commented version
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this is actually the best Google I/O i've seen
game service
nice mapping
music service
awesome monetization options for developers
awesome ways for organizations to pay for apps. as an apple fan i'm shocked apple has some archaic hipster payment system for governments
awesome photo tools
no dumb glasses
minimum of idiotic talking to your phone or computer and having google tell you when to go to work
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It was more of a "bug fix" type of I/O announcement, which are some of my favorites. It means stuff gets fixed or works better. Android Key Lime Pie is going to almost certainly be 4.3.
The next Nexus phone is a rebranded Samsung Galaxy 4S, which means the next Android version doesn't require much in the way of new hardware.
The music service is going to be something to fill in the gaps. Although it is more like Pandora mixed with Rdio as opposed to something like Amazon or Apple's "scan 'em then download
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Why the negative commentary?
Because Google is an advertising company. Advertising companies are cunts.
WebP and VP9 (Score:2)
There we go again... another files formats war.
Even more vendor lockin (Score:5, Informative)
Goolge announced that Hangouts will replace gtalk. They've also announced they'll be dropping XMPP support.
Why is such a huge lockin received with thunderous applause? Non-google users will no longer be able to communicate with google-users. That's just google saying "use our services, or loose contact with 80% of your contacts".
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Yep, it sucks. It's a lot more cross platform that most other proprietary comms, but it's still proprietary and requires a login. I don't want to be stuck using a browser rather than a simple chat client either. This is one of those cases where if people were using the open standard they supported (instead of FaceBook messaging, FaceTime, iMessage, etc), it would probably have been kept.
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This isn't really true, since Hangouts are built on open web protocols with support in Firefox and Chrome (and presumably Safari and IE once they catch up). There's no need for any IM-specific protocol "lockin" when you have general-purpose communication protocols available on the open web. XMPP is old.
so is http
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This isn't really true, since Hangouts are built on open web protocols with support in Firefox and Chrome (and presumably Safari and IE once they catch up). There's no need for any IM-specific protocol "lockin" when you have general-purpose communication protocols available on the open web.
Plenty of clients doesn't mean it's open. XMPP is open because anyone can set up a server and there's no central authority. Even if you have a thousand hangouts clients, there's still one single central authority which has the final word on anything regarding your communications.
XMPP is old.
Email is older by decades. What's your point?
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The real lock in is a G+ account. I am guessing they hope people will sign up for G+ so they can chat. I am guessing that most that are not on G+ won't bother.
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"use our services, or loose contact with 80% of your contacts".
Hey, but it's Google. "Use our services. 80% of your contacts are losers."
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In conclusion, open.
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Because the simple fact is that people want the extra features way, waaaay more than they want XMPP. The standard is outdated, it isn't competitive. It doesn't matter if you run on top of a standard if nobody wants to use the product.
Dropping XMPP doesn't automatically mean lock in, either. Google could come out with a new standard. Doubtful, perhaps, but with Google you never know.
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Because the simple fact is that people want the extra features way, waaaay more than they want XMPP.
The X in XMPP stands for eXtensible. If they want more, use extensions, document them, and submit them.
The standard is outdated, it isn't competitive.
If it's so outdated, why do facebook, wlm and whatsapp use it internally? Granted, they don't federate, but they still use the protocol.
It doesn't matter if you run on top of a standard if nobody wants to use the product.
Of course the standard matters. About 30% of my contacts list use non-google xmpp servers. My dropping xmpp, they would loose the ability to communicate with google users. They loose a huge variety of xmpp clients they can use. If xmpp is dropped, all those clients, bots,
Re: (Score:2)
That would not be a new standard. That would merely be a new protocol, which they publicly documented. There's a big difference.
Documenting it isn't enough either. Do all those other xmpp users out there need to migrate their servers and clients too? Just because google wanted to use a new protocol? I don't think so.
No, actually, there isn't a difference. You can pretend that somehow the IETF magically turns RFCs into "standards", but a standard is merely something publicly defined that people can follow.
If it's so outdated, why do facebook, wlm and whatsapp use it internally? Granted, they don't federate, but they still use the protocol.
WLM uses MSNP2, not XMPP.
None of those do video chat, either. And just because they use it doesn't mean it's a good decision or not outdated. XMPP is not mobile-friendly
Re: (Score:2)
That would not be a new standard. That would merely be a new protocol, which they publicly documented. There's a big difference.
Documenting it isn't enough either. Do all those other xmpp users out there need to migrate their servers and clients too? Just because google wanted to use a new protocol? I don't think so.
No, actually, there isn't a difference. You can pretend that somehow the IETF magically turns RFCs into "standards", but a standard is merely something publicly defined that people can follow.
It's not a standard because the IETF published it. It's a standard because there are dozens of client and server implementations, and thousands of running servers out there. If google opens up their spec, it'll still be just one server. And there'd be no point to a second server out there, because they don't federate.
If it's so outdated, why do facebook, wlm and whatsapp use it internally? Granted, they don't federate, but they still use the protocol.
WLM uses MSNP2, not XMPP.
None of those do video chat, either. And just because they use it doesn't mean it's a good decision or not outdated. XMPP is not mobile-friendly
WLM supports XMPP for some time now, though with a custom auth mechanism. Do you googleing before arguing.
As for non mobile-friendly: {{citation needed}}. Also, whatsapp uses XMPP, and their se
Google Plus Redesign "Have it OUR way." (Score:3)
"And, notable, Larry Page is (at this writing) on stage, with an unannounced Q & A session."
Someone ask him how the frack we can change back to the old google plus design. Changing the stream settings seems to just make the new layout single column and thus suck even more.
And their documentation doesn't seem to say jack.