Category: technology

Categories
professional technology

Google Buzz, Augmented Reality and E-Commerce

Years ago (more than three years at least) I guessed that Google would be moving into the augmented reality game and make it an e-commerce tool. I was in the 3D-for-e-commerce biz so it was hopefully thinking at best, but I kept seeing signs that this was the direction they were heading. When Google bought SketchUp, I knew I was onto something, though still only steps ahead of the hopeful thinking.

As Google’s 3D warehouse started to focus on city architecture, as Google started to send out QR code stickers to businesses, as Street View, Goggles and Navigation is added to Android, as rumors fly of Street View going into store interiors, even as they jumped ahead with the well-killed Lively, my guess can now be played up all like knew what I was talking about. The way Buzz just debuted with huge potential, I suspect that Google is looking for social media to accelerate the adoption of their future tools. They will have an at least adequate response to Foursquare and Twitter, even if it never gets to their level of adoption or interface. Grouped with Navigation, Maps, Calendar, Street View and eventual Google Earth, 3D Warehouse and Goggles, these products may become a complete and popular integration of e-commerce and bricks-and-mortar retail. Wave too will have a great place as online conversations and social interactions become more and more location-based.

I’m now convinced that Google will buy Layar, or release a better-than-Layar product within the next calendar year. Within two years they will have an Android powered device that will be ad-driven and insanely cheap, if not free, that will have all these products together. I think I might be ready for that. Will you?

Categories
divination interpretation technology walking

The Spot of The Thought

My recent experience of listening to audio books has made me more focused on the location of thought. When recalling the material I heard, I was more apt to recall its place in the work by remembering where I was in my walk when I heard it.

I remember the exact locations where I was when I had thoughts important to me decades ago. I’m sure we all do. I remember hearing that Homeric storytellers would hold a path, or a mansion, in their minds as they told the Iliad. Each door and corner unfolded the verses and held the plot. Our thoughts lay a map upon the ground we’ve traveled and our past best follows a familiar path.

Lately I’ve been bringing everything back to some lost commentator’s thoughts on hunting and tracking. We became storytellers and scientists in order to make sense of the evidence on the ground. We ate by how well we could create a good story, tell it to those who could help, and follow it through to the prey. We speak hungry steps.

The years in this town has created a topography of memory for me. That corner holds a stack of dream interpretations. That alley is where I find confidence. I’m humble near the tracks and happy near that vacant lot. There’s a block downtown that is more sacred to me than any church.

I’ve been doing a lot of looking into geolocation and augmented reality lately, not as a technology I’ll bring into my career, nor as a scientific curiosity, but as a mode of expression my mind has always had, and poetry we’ve always sung. Could be fun.

Categories
family professional programming technology

Pruning and Weaving

willow-wovenMy son and I worked on the willow hut yesterday. Today I worked on some inherited spaghetti code.

The winter die-off was woven in with new growth. It was difficult to find which part should be snapped off, which brought to the light, which woven back to hold the thing together. I snipped and pulled and made a mess of it. For a while it even lost much of its shape.

Now the ceiling is higher, though the walls are thinner. The door is a bit too tall and the back wall is still too thin, but this summer promises strong growth.

Categories
facebook programming technology

Hyping The Latest

75x75icon2I just launched my latest facebook application. Working with goopymart, I built a vibing/messaging application highlighting the great goopiness of goopy’s artwork. Three characters are available at first, but more are available the more you use it. Give it a whirl!

vibe-o-mat

For you technical types, this was a great way to ramp up my skills in FBML, FBJS, the facebook API and the Data Store API. Unlike the nshrine facebook app, the simplicity of this application allowed for the exploration of a lot more technology. I strongly recommend it as an exercise.

Categories
personal technology

Finding Voice

I went to Wordcamp Portland yesterday.  Though I couldn’t stay for the whole event, and I’m far from a wordpress power user, it was still quite inspirational.  I met good, positive people and saw some shining examples of people doing what they loved with good tools.

Though I learned something immediately useful, and somethings that helped me rethink my weak approach to blogging, it could have been a day long conference on fly-tying, or quilting, or chain-saw sculpture. In my current situation, I just need to know that things can work.