Tag: google

Project Ara and the dream of a modular pocket computer

Posted on September 6, 2016 by Ewan Spence

Google’s Project Ara is no more. The failure of Ara shouldn’t be seen as the inability to make a modular smartphone where users can replace parts (after all, Fairphone seem to be doing rather well with Fairphone 2… I just wish the team would hurry up and get Sailfish running on the Dutch handset). Ara’s cancellation feels like the realisation of Android’s commercial nature. Modular smartphones are not going to be as efficient as custom-built sealed units. The software cannot be tightly optimised around specific hardware, the modular components require connectors to a central spine, they’ll need to be larger

Hedy Lamarr And The Google Doodle

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Ewan Spence

On Hedy Lamarr’s 101st birthday, she makes it to the Google Doodle. Born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler on 9 November 1914 in Vienna, Austria, Ms Lemarr got her first leading role aged just 17, in a German film called Geld Auf Der Strase. A subsequent German film, Exstase, brought her to the attention of Hollywood producers, and she soon signed a contract with MGM. Once in Hollywood, she officially changed her name to Hedy Lamarr and starred in her first Hollywood film, Algiers (1938), opposite Charles Boyer. She continued to land parts opposite the most popular and talented actors of

Google’s ‘One pixel out’ moment

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Ewan Spence

Google goes all Popmaster and moves two letters in their main logo by one pixel. I wonder if a design agency would charge by the pixel, and if so would that be the one-pixel delta (movement based) or by the number of pixels they had to move (volume based)?

Keylogging Android by design

Posted on February 11, 2014 by Ewan Spence

Samsung are working on a service that allows application ‘a’ to receive the keystrokes from application ‘b’, ‘c’, ‘d’, etc (reports The Verge) so that application ‘a’ can be more contextually aware and deliver better search results and improved experiences. Automatically. I can’t see an issue with that at all. I’m sure everyone will be more than happy that Android will allow data to flow to apps, to servers outside of the handset, and be analysed and recorded, with nothing more than a security pop up at install. Nobody would ever leverage that for evil…

Flappy Bird disappears, but Google’s mobile advertising inventory will grow

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Ewan Spence

Now that everyone on the planet knows that Flappy Bird was earning the author $50,000 a day (that’s set in stone, no matter what the numbers say), every developer is going to try and replicate that success. Not the big boys, but the bedroom coders and the hobbyists will think that ‘the next title’ will be the one to make it big. And they’ll carry on churning out countless ad-supported games that bring in maybe $100 in total for a ridiculously low per hour rate for the developer. In the meantime , Google slices a significant percentage off the top

Start the death-watch on the Android alarm clock app Timely

Posted on January 4, 2014January 5, 2014 by Ewan Spence

Bitspin are the team behind Timely, the popular replacement alarm clock for Android, and they’ve just been bought by Google: We’re thrilled to announce that Bitspin is joining Google, where we’ll continue to do what we love: building great products that are delightful to use. For new and existing users, Timely will continue to work as it always has. Given Google’s previous form in buy-outs, I expect Timely to be removed from the Google Play store in the first weke in April and the Bitspin team assigned to ‘other roles inside Google’.