Google Wave

I just finished watching the Google Wave video on YouTube, here.

Google have come along with a new technology called Wave. Watch the video to find out more about it (be warned, its a video from the Google I/O developer conference, so its a little techy). Basically they have stepped back from the way we currently communicate with each other (e-mail, IM, SMS) etc and, reinvented it. Its hard to explain, just watch the video (its long though).

There are times when I think Google are becoming the new Microsoft, the way they’re taking over everything and the way they buy new companies, however… Google keep proving me wrong, time and time again they surprise me.

I’ll try and summarise the features that I can remember (guess they’re the good ones):

• Live – All communication when using Wave is live, even the typing, so no more “Buddy is typing…”. Waves come and go in your inbox, even the search is live.
• Open Source – Woo! This means that other people can create their own Wave servers. Different wave servers can communicate with each other, using something called Foundation
• Collaboration – A wave is basically a smart document, or conversation. A smart docusation if you would. All the people involved with the Wave can edit the Wave at the same time and all the changes are displayed live on all the clients. Impressive
• Playback – When you are added to a Wave after it has already started, you will see all the edits/comments/conversations in the Wave already. Google have come up with a playback feature, which lets you see how the Wave was constructed. Another impressive feature.
• Extensions – Google demonstrated some pretty cool extensions, check them out in the video.
• Rosy – Live Translation! This was probably the most impressive feature of Wave, Google demonstrated two people conversing, one in French and another in English, Wave was translating what was written, in real time!

Overall I was very impressed with Google Wave, obviously as a developer I find this thing interesting anyway, but hopefully this will change the way people communicate world wide. For the better. Open protocols, Open source.

Google have impressed me today.

Tags: Google, Google Wave, Wave

FirefoxNotify

I stumbled on this add-on to Firefox today, finally solving an annoyance I’ve had for ages. Ubuntu Jaunty has a great new notification system (not perfect, but certainly a step in the right direction), yet Firefox continued to use its own silly notification in the lower left corner of the screen.

With this add-on the Firefox will utilise the notification system that comes with Ubuntu Jaunty:

Firefox Download Notification

Get the add-on here.

Update: So it seems this only works with the completed download notification. Hopefully the author will integrate it further into Firefox in the future.

Tags: Firefox, Firefox Add-on, Linux, Ubuntu

Star Trek

Last Saturday (16th) I saw Star Trek at the IMAX in birmingham. Overall I thought the film was pretty good, one of the best I’ve seen this year, but I have some concerns.

This film was one of the rare occasions where I had issue with the quality of the production. Although I’m a bit of a video/audiophile when it comes to quality, I’m usually quite good at getting into a film’s story/action. However, the people behind Star Trek seemed obsessed with sun glares all the time, meaning at times (especially the opening scenes), you could barely see what was going on. I’ve read comments from JJ saying that he admits he was wrong and he was going for a unique style, which I appreciate but I think he went just a bit too far.

Another concerning obsession seemed to be the closeups, made worse by the venue (I’ll get to that a bit more later on). Technically its nice to be able to see every single piece of facial hair on Chris Pine’s face, but it does detract from the film a little.

So that’s the technical side of the film, now onto the story, which at first watch seems very good, impressive, very Star Trek like. I was concerned this wouldn’t be Star Trekky enough for me, but it didn’t disappoint where that was concerned. Perhaps the bad guy could have been stronger and it was a bit confusing trying to work out just when he was from, but no real issues here. However, when you look back at what was said, this is an ‘alternate’ time-line. Which is quite clever for them to do, but also very dangerous. This now gives them the freedom to do whatever they like with the Star Trek universe, without concerns for the series that were set further along the ‘original’ timeline. It might work, but it also runs the risk of alienating the Star Trek fanbase.

Apart from that the film was excellent. The right mixture of action, likeable characters, characters you could dislike without it being annoying and comedy. Simon Pegg could have done with a bigger role but no doubt that will come in future films.

Speaking of future films, I really hope that they don’t rush out the next film, as much as I enjoyed this film and can’t wait for the next one. Hollywood has a tendency to rush sequels out of the door, in order to cash-in on the hype. This works with some films, where they were already intended to be shot like this (eg. Lord of the Rings) but other films like the Matrix have proved just how badly this can go. I’d rather wait an extra year for a quality film, than go next summer for an average film.

Oh, one more complaint, this time not about the film itself. IMAX is a wonderful technology and I urge you to see the film on an IMAX screen, just not the Birmingham one. The facilities were dire at best. Not even a real popcorn machine, just bags of sweet popcorn. The seats were too close to the screen, no way to book a seat number, so everybody is scrambling to find a seat. Very poor. I might have to wander down to the London one and see if that’s any better.

Overall I’ll give the film 8/10, which is high coming from me =)

Tags: Birmingham, Birmingham IMAX, IMAX, Star Trek

Post by Email

So wordpress.com have enabled posting by email. Means I can post from my phone now without having to fiddle around with windows mobile’s crappy browser. I know opera is better, but runs like a pig on this phone.

Then again, I can post to twitter from here too, but I rarely do, so don’t expect anything =)

I have a post to write about Star Trek at some point, but not yet, watching the F1 at the minute.

So the badminton season has finished now.

Right, so its been about 3 months since I posted here, which to be honest isn’t good enough. I’ve been meaning to come on here and write something, but just never get around to it, so I’ve been using twitter to share little bits of information now and then.

Since my last post nothing really has happened apart from badminton. I won the Division 1 Evesham Mixed league for Stow which can be seen here.
We went into the final match of the season needing a 3-3 draw against the team in 2nd place, who had won the league for the past few years. In predictable style, we lost the first 3 games of the night. We managed to claw our way back, to clinch the title

We took the Men’s league to the final game of the season, needing a 5-1 victory away at Alcester to be crowned champions and be promoted, in the end, we lost 5-1, ended up finishing 4th in the league, and feeling a bit crap! It was close though, here’s how the league finished:

• 41 | St. Edwards
• 40 | Winchcombe B
• 39 | Alcester B
• 38 | Blackminster B
• 13 | Winchcombe C
• 09 | Bourton B

Supernovi is BACK!

Tim has finally got www.supernovi.com back online, with a new and improved theme. Go check it out

Next-episode.net

Since I’m on a mission to write more posts, I thought I’d write about a site that I visit quite regularly and find very useful.

That site is Next-Episode.net.

A site that is dedicated to helping you track the TV shows that you watch, with a healthy community and active developer in the form of the site’s host, santah. The interface is clean, tidy, and very easy to navigate.

Aside from being able to see episode information and schedules, the site has a babe-of-the-day feature maintained by member karenbear.

However, the shining feature of the website is the directly named ‘stuff-to-watch’, which is a simple and easy way to track the episodes you have watched, as well as those you’ve yet to see.

Anyway, check it out, its free to use and once you sign up the interface is tidier