Tomas Martin @ 15-12-2007
Google has announced a new wikipedia-like project, entitled ‘knol’. Short for knowledge, the project aims to have an encyclopedia type experience but with more emphasis on the author, rather than anonymous multiple contributors. There will not be editorial contributions from Google, but authors including ads will get revenue.
An example knol has been put up on the Google blog. Google says that the emphasis will be on large numbers of posts, ranked by users and views to encourage quality. Peer review seems to encourage good writers to become better rated and more successful. Added to the potential to earn money, this endeavour could provide a good potential way to create a freelance online writer business model. It looks like Knol will be less comprehensive/consistent across the entire volume of data than Wikipedia, but with better quality at the top end. It’s a similar model to Mahalo, only with the backing of perhaps the biggest internet company out there.
[via boing boing, image is the example of a Google Knol]
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Paul Raven @ 13-12-2007
The ongoing efforts of the advertising industry to make it impossible to escape from promotional material for products that no one really needs continue apace, with the full weight of modern technology behind them.
Warren Ellis points us at a report about a billboard that uses a technique called “audio spotlighting” to beam sound directly into your head … the only redeeming feature of which is the thought of the fun that culture jammers will be able to have once they figure ways of hacking them. [Image by rick]
Of course, the real frontier of advertising is right here on our beloved intarwebs, and it appears that some ISPs are keen to have a piece of the pie that Google has baked for itself. So some of those ISPs are selling your clickstream data to a company called NebuAd to make it easier to target you with “appropriate” ads. Nothing like a captive data-set to boost accuracy, eh?
Not quite as cheeky as a Canadian ISP called Rogers, though, who’ve been plastering their own ad content on Google’s homepage. That’s probably going to backfire, but if you look at it as a proof-of-concept job, it’s plain to see that web ads aren’t going to get any less intrusive any time soon - can you say “digital turf-war”?
On the subject of Google, recent research suggests that Google’s PageRank algorithm is actually a pretty good model of the way the human mind determines the relative importance of related concepts, and may provide a new route forward for artificial intelligence. How ironic would it be for us to reach the Singularity only to discover that the omnibrain of the human species is essentially interested in selling us things …
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Stephen Years @ 17-09-2007
Photo Credit: NASA (via Wikimedia Commons)
DigitalGlobe, provider of imagery for Google Earth, will be launching a new satellite dubbed WorldView I next Tuesday, that will boost the accuracy of its satellite images to half-meter resolution. With that type of accuracy the satellite will now be able to pinpoint objects on the Earth at three to 7.5 meters, or 10 to 25 feet. Using known reference points on the ground, the accuracy could rise to about two meters. Additionally the satellite will be able to collect over 600,000 square kilometers of imagery each day, up from the current collection of that amount each week.
It seems that we are getting much closer to the CIC Earth application as envisioned by Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash, which was able to present real time satellite imagery.
[Via C|Net]
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Paul Raven @ 10-09-2007
While there is still no official word from the Big G itself, word on the street seems to suggest that Google will begin charging for full access to texts through its BookSearch service. Given the amount of hassle they’ve been getting from publishers and copyright owners about the Universal Library project, we probably shouldn’t be surprised … but I also expect there’ll be more to the idea than has been initially reported once an official announcement arrives. [Image by Laineys Repertoire]
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Paul Raven @ 05-09-2007
Looks like LibraryThing and Shelfari just got served - Google Book Search now allows you to tag titles that you own and assemble an online catalog of your precious book collection. I liked the look of LibraryThing, but the idea of having to pay to catalog more than a few hundred titles was a deal breaker for me. Yet another business model trounced by the ubiquitous giants of search …
On the subject of libraries, the place where I work has a lot of old manuscripts which are, tricky to read - at least for anyone unaccustomed to 19th Century copperplate handwriting. So if the technical types who’ve developed the new ‘Blurred Shape Model’ optical character recognition system need someone to beta test it, we’d be more than happy to help. [Image by GeneralWesc]
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Jeremy Lyon @ 04-08-2007
What’s the cartography of your life? Google and many others want you to contribute to their mapping solutions. I won’t try to improve on Brady Forrest’s write up at O’Reilly Radar, except to say that if you haven’t checked out the Open Street Map yet, you should.
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Jeremy Lyon @ 08-07-2007
Got a few centuries under your belt? Think you could handle the Tour de France some day? You might want to check out the 2007 route on Google Earth before you get too cocky. Make sure you make the appropriate cheering noises as you zoom down the Champs Elysees for the finish. [wired]
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