Gfanatic

Some bored ‘2nd life’ citizens (online fanatics) have found themselves a refuge in Google Image Labeler. This is a feature that allows internet users to label the photos they see in Google image search results. This helps Google to sort out those millions of photos in their index.

Labeling images in Google can be done by anyone. Interested individuals can just start labeling either as a guest or with a specific nickname. There’s a twist though, users are labeling the images with someone else as if it is a game. Google has come up with a mechanism making it more interesting and interactive.

The twist…
You’ll be randomly paired with someone else who’s active online wanting to use the same feature. Both of you will be given two minutes and you’ll do the same thing at the same time.

The first thing you’ll have to do with your partner is to view a set of images. You’ll have to label the photos you will see. As both of you describe the images with similar descriptions, you’ll receive points. You can describe as many images as you can in the given time of two minutes.

A lot of websites offer features that allow the online community to be involved. It’s amazing how most of them gather overwhelming responses when all these people participate into is simply the interest of improving the quality of Google image search.

So what?
Oh well, I have tried describing sites in various site directories and my interest lasted short, really short. I found reading blogs and commenting on them more interesting. It caught my attention better as it was interactive getting replies for the comments I’ve posted. Some more websites offered similar features which didn’t get into me at all. So what if they allow people to be part of their content development.

But for Google Image Labeler, it was a different case. The idea of having to describe with someone else online at the same time was a bit catchy or maybe I was too bored at that time. The more interactive it sounded, the more I got interested.

Sometimes labeling can serve as a form of competition not necessarily among pairs but within the pairs. Yes, it can happen by comparing how many descriptions you can give. But as a pair, your goal is to have similar descriptions so as to earn more points.

Not all search results in Google Search are directly relevant to the desired search. For example, you want to search other websites about Gfanatic. Results from www.gfanatic.com would turn out useless because you already know about Gfanatic from this site. 

Another possible reason why people prefer to exclude some sites from their search is to lessen the commercial aspect of the search results. Commercialized websites usually show up the first granted its relevance to the keyword. But it doesn’t necessarily contain relevant information.

Now for those of you who have been researching on how to exclude sites from your Google search, here’s how. After typing in the keyword/s enclosed with quotation marks, simply type the hyphen or minus sign followed by the word ‘site’ then a colon and then the website url.

Syntax: <”keyword/s”>-site:<URL of the site you want to exclude search results from>

Example: “Gfanatic”-site:http://gfanatic.com

Don’t forget the hyphen or the minus sign. Remember it signifies to cancel out. If you don’t include the hyphen or the minus sign, it will search the keyword on that specific site. 

Examples:

To Exclude a Site
“Google Earth”-site:http://gfanatic.com

To Search in a Particular Site (no hyphen / minus sign)
“Google Earth” site:http://gfanatic.com

One of the most helpful features Google had ever introduced in this Tech world is the free Google Maps. It is the most useful features since Google search.

Google Maps is a free web mapping application that powers other related mapping services by Google– including map web embedding. Google offers Google maps and directions complete with route planner, street maps, and guides for vehicles such as bicycle, cars, business locator and pedestrians. There are also some cities with traffic details.

Moreover, there is a third-party web application for Google maps called Gmaps Pedometer or Google maps pedometer. A great web app for those travellers who tread on foot to enjoy the sceneries on a new place, It provides them information on the measure of a distance covered by a traveler on foot. The number of steps taken in a travel were recorded. This app proves to be useful in trekking places covered in the maps.

Google though already has a similar feature to Gmaps pedometer. You can now check the directions to that place either by car, by public transportation (on some areas), or by walking. It will show you how long it will take to get to a place if you will just walk. The walking directions is still in beta though.

Also, Google world maps provide useful information especially on business locations. Customers are provided with accurate data on how to get to a certain location with adjacent establishments and streets. Google direction on a certain areas is often supported with close coordination among the developers to further expand its efficiency.

And since finding directions is most important when people are on the road, Google map services are available on mobile phones and similar gadgets. This move maximizes Google Maps potential and services.

Many Google users ask this question after using Google Translate for the first time. They want to make sure the tool is reliable. Since only native speakers and professional translators can tell, their question most of the time is left unanswered.

Actually, there are instances that Google’s language translator can provide a translation as if a human translates it. There are also instances that it produces poor translation. Because of this translation flaw, users should just use this tool then to get an idea of what a foreign text could possibly mean.

How Is Google Translate Different From Other Online Translation Tools?

Google Translate, in comparison to other language translation tool, is using a “statistical translation system for the language pairs” instead of the rule-based approach that “requires a lot of work to define grammar and vocabularies.”

What Google actually means with their technology is that they “feed the computer billions of words of text, both monolingual text in the target language, and aligned text consisting of examples of human translations between the languages. We then apply statistical learning techniques to build a translation model.” Google first got their linguistic data from United Nations’ documents that are normally available in six languages, and acquire more from other resources.

(Well, their explanation still seemed vague to me, but using my imagination seemed to help me understand what Google really mean. It’s like feeding their computers with text from a Bible that was written in English on the first column and in a different language on the right column.)

Can Google Translate Be Improved?

Despite the flaw of Google Translate, it can be improved. Google is constantly working on its perfection, and even users can contribute if they see that a word or a text has been poorly translated by the computer. This can be done by native speakers who would like to test the accuracy of the tool, or by even those intermediate speaker. Both of them can easily identify a poorly translated part of the text since they have a good background of grammar rules, and idiomatic expressions.

So to contribute, all they have to do is expand the Suggest a Better Translation link. It will display a box where they can type their translation. After typing, they click the contribute button.

It may take time though for Google to update their database since they might still review what have been submitted, but at least everyone can help on improving the quality of Google language translator tool.

Hola! Google tiene una gran característica.

In English, it means “Hello! Google has a great feature.”

No, I don’t speak Spanish at all. This translation was made possible by Google Translate. An online tool wherein one just has to input word/s for translation, this one is a state-of-the-art technology that Google has come up with.

An in-house thing…

Google developed this translation software that uses a statistical translation system. It applies a translation model that is founded with billions of monolingual and aligned texts. It does not guarantee perfect translation but can be considered to ‘close to being perfect’ since the texts consist of human translation examples between the languages.

Various languages are covered. Even Arabic translator, Google has it. Translator Google, as personified, can translate to more than 30 languages for now. Expect to be thrilled with more languages in the future. Some of the languages include Bulgarian, Chinese both simplified and traditional, Danish, Filipino, Greek, Korean, and many others.

Google language translator has been widely used even by chatters online. They commonly use it to understand some foreign words chatters use.

If you are excited to use this tool visit http://www.google.com/language_tools or http://translate.google.com/translate_t# .

_

His what?!?

Eric Calisto, a boy turning 18 on December 2, created a website asking everyone to contact Google and have his design of Google logo to appear on the homepage as a birthday present. For me, this is a very creative, boldest request to promote himself online. And to think I am linking back to him….

Well, how viral his strategy is. Clever idea Eric, but I don’t want your logo there. It would really be interesting though if you will be able to make it. Happy birthday.

I was just chatting with my friend an hour ago in Gmail when I noticed the borders turned to a darker shade of blue, and the edges got sleeker. I immediately asked my friend if he noticed any difference with his Gmail, and he said no. I told him what I saw and won’t believe me, so I sent him a screenshot.

This is what I saw on the first minutes:

This is what Gmail looks like before:

This is what Gmail is now, after the new theme was completely rolled out.

But in fact, the new design is only one of the themes in the Theme Lab, the new feature that Gmail just unrolled about a couple of hours ago. If you check your Settings >> Themes Tab, there you will see 23 themes to choose from. If you miss the old Gmail theme, just choose Classic.

Here are some of the themes.

Desk Theme

Graffiti Theme

Dusk Theme

This is not the first time I was there when the new design unfold in front of me. I remembered experiencing it as well in Google Analytics before, just a month ago I think. It’s cool to see it changed in front of you, though it last only a few seconds to switch.

Today, Google commemorated the Starting up of Cern’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) by displaying a picture of the LHC on the Google search home page. The LHC is the largest particle accelerator ever created. It could lead to the discovery of the “God Particle” and could help answer questions such as:

• Why do we see so much matter in nature but not antimatter?
• Are there extra dimensions and can we “see” them?
• Why is gravity so much weaker than the other fundamental forces?
• Where does dark matter and dark energy come from?
• Do particles have supersymmetric counterparts?

It is great to see Google supporting this great day in Science.

The reason I went Firefox 3 on my new PC just recently is to feel the rush of having a browser that leaf through web pages at the speed of light, sadly it’s a dim lighted alley full of tumbleweed in a not-so-sunny afternoon.  That’s why I feel so exhilarated when finally I have my hands over this new browser in town that everyone is frantic about—The Google Chrome.

Never mind the other features but the speed alone makes you glued to your seat and wanting to browse more web pages like you’ve never done before.  Although the absence of add on and extensions makes you reminisce your old love with Firefox, I’m quite sure the Google team behind this hype wouldn’t let up this Beta version to be a Beta forever unless those people is fond of idiosyncrasy.

Google chrome’s features are clean, professional and crisp. Spotless as it may seem,  it’s quite functional in every step, you can toggle tabs left and right—most useful for multi tasking geniuses out there.  And for those regular Einstein of secretive world, Chrome has this incognito page where you can leave no trace of your browsing prowess for the FBI, CIA, Interpol or your mother in law to trace. Yep, cookies and registries are never recorded as you browse through incognito mode; bookmarks are never saved in that method unless you get back to the ordinary browsing page.  That I think sets Chrome apart from the other browser around the Cyber World.

There is one disappointment though, no Google toolbar yet available for chrome, and how much I needed those page rank feature of Google toolbar, in short, Firefox  is still handy pending the full version of Google Chrome. Most of Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3 features can be found in Google Chrome plus the fact that it is almost 5 times faster than the two makes it a winner.

Try experiencing clicking a new tab and you will be amazed by the number of screenshots you have recently browsed displayed on that page, so getting back to your favourite page is never that tough, plus the fact that recently bookmarked and imported from Firefox pages are also being displayed at the right column makes the Chrome more organized.

Google Chrome can also handle HTML lightning quickly and can grip dynamic content in a crash proof mode without the worry of stammering between words, not bad for a beta version.

I think the secret to the new innovation Google has employed to Chrome is the well balanced features of the browser, I mean let’s admit it everything on the Google Chrome is not original, bits and pieces came from Firefox 3, IE8 or Safari but Google team make it a point to use a weighing scale to put into equilibrium the whole process. In philosophical world, Google chrome is the Aristotle with wisdoms coming from Plato and Socrates. 

At the height of the game SIMS, the interactive Second Life and IMVU along comes Google Lively. Formerly known as Google Metaverse, Google Lively is a three-dimensional chat world pulled out from Google’s magic box. It is an eye candy three dimensional social networking chat tool that soon to invade every home, office and other areas where there is a flat surface that a computer can sit, a broadband connection and some excess time to burn.

Since I’ve been warned  that installing Google Lively on your computer makes it Uber slow and ultimately makes your PC crash, I decided otherwise to read a bundle of reviews and FAQs to satisfy my killing curiosity of the matter.

If you’ve got a Google account then you can set up Google Lively. Once it is installed, you navigate your avatar to talk to others in the chat world. You can talk; you can even show your emotions, dance around, change furniture, mingle with others, build your own rooms complete with facilities or embed a 3D chat widget on your website for your visitors to interact with you in cyber environs.

Google Lively is a very SIMS-ish, Second Life-ish kind of thing. As if not satisfied with chatting through web cam, they offered 3D chatting and interaction in a silver platter. What’s the fuss? I have nothing against techno advancement, of course who wouldn’t want to grow? But the question is: for what is it all worth? Hate to tell you guys but communications among fellow humans should not be all that complicated, and if the inner core in making this Google Lively application is to bridge people through fun communication—well this bridge is made up of fancy yarn thread.

For Google this thing is a massive income generator for years to come, it’s like having the reality show ‘Big Brother’ with millions of ‘housemates’ lurking around the cyber world full of ads splashing at every nook and cranny. This ginormous social networking/virtual world space will be more appealing to the youth of this generation and as they replace their old PCs (Google Lively does not work with slightly old trashy PCs—sorry!) communications maybe confined to 3D chatting. And what a sight if Yahoo follows, far more,Microsoft is planning something of this genre—oh, what a world we’re in!

I know many people drooling over to try this thingy but wait! There’s more, check your computer to see if you’re in, your computer should have the following:

* a video card with at least 32 MB of video memory
* Pentium3 800
* 512 MB RAM
* DirectX 9
* 32MB GPU, like GeForce 2 or higher
* Flash 9 player and up
* Broadband connection

Rules about profanity and nudity are being set, but hey it’s chatting on the cyber world since when somebody reprimand someone as he/she blurts out profane and vulgar language in chat? I don’t think 3D avatars will add much social experience to anybody unless he/she breathes and eats computer every day. And reprimanding/banning one’s Google account would hurt so much because you use a single Google account on all of this.

This thing Google Lively in my opinion should not be taken seriously, unless you’re a hardcore gamer who takes a break from shooting aliens in ‘Half-Life’ by chatting as thumb thumping Uber shrewd girlie in pony tail. Communication is simple don’t complicate it. And oh, did I tell you that it only runs on Windows?

Update: Google Lively is Shutting Down on December 31, 2008.