My Red Hot Philosophy: google

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Google's Driverless Cars

Sebastian Thrun is one of the developers behind Google's driverless cars. He is motivated by a very personal quest to reduce traffic accidents and road death fatalities. His aim is to save over a million lives a year and he hopes to do so with automated cars. Thrun believes that not only will fully automated cars be more efficient removing the variables of human error or fatigue from the equation but they will also be more fuel efficient, get you to your destination faster and allow more cars on the road at one time. The following videos show the automated car in action and Thrun goes into a little more detail about his vision.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Gmail Motion Beta: Lol Hard

Appearing on the Google homepage is a link to a new gmail BETA project entitled Gmail Motion. The videos and information contained in the link inform us that Google have developed a motion-capacitive email add-on for their gmail service. Prepare to lol hard as you read the information that is included with this link. Another great April Fools joke that I hope nobody fell for. :-)

This is the link to the full BETA project:

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html

April Fools Pranks That The Internet Got Up To Today

The internet is one of the best places for spreading viral ideas and many of the industries biggest providers cannot help themselves when it comes to April Fool's day. Here is a brief review of some of the pranks on the net today.

Firstly youtube posted this video this morning a very tame larf but I suppose they have to be reserved. However, I did very much enjoy the jazz cat.

The wikipedia home page was full of a dodgey featured article, a lot of silly did you knows and even more unlikely events on this day. Here it is for you all the links should be active. If not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Today's featured article
Fanny scratching in 18th-century London's Cock Lane was so notorious that interested bystanders often blocked the street. It became the focus of a religious controversy between Methodists and orthodox Anglicans, and was reported on by celebrities of the period such as Samuel Johnson. Charles Dickens referred to the phenomenon in several of his books, including Nicholas Nickleby and A Tale of Two Cities, and other Victorian authors also alluded to it in their work. One enterprising resident diverted the crowds that gathered in Cock Lane by allowing them to converse with a ghost he claimed was haunting his home, to which he charged an entrance fee. Fanny scratching eventually resulted in several prosecutions, and the pillorying of a father. (more...)

Today's featured article

Fanny scratching in 18th-century London's Cock Lane was so notorious that interested bystanders often blocked the street. It became the focus of a religious controversy between Methodists and orthodox Anglicans, and was reported on by celebrities of the period such as Samuel Johnson. Charles Dickens referred to the phenomenon in several of his books, including Nicholas Nickleby and A Tale of Two Cities, and other Victorian authors also alluded to it in their work. One enterprising resident diverted the crowds that gathered in Cock Lane by allowing them to converse with a ghost he claimed was haunting his home, to which he charged an entrance fee. Fanny scratching eventually resulted in several prosecutions, and the pillorying of a father. (more...)

Did you know...

From Wikipedia's newest articles:

... that the Australian government requires high-risk sex workers to wear full-facerespirators (example pictured)?
... that Ntrepid was paid $2.76 million by the U.S. military to create sock puppets?
... that Batman is half female?
... that nesting is not used by breeding Mute Swans but they do use this thing?
... that Robert Tappan Morris was convicted of a crime for releasing a worm?
... that Dr. Who's parents are Brazilians from a family known for pineapples?
... that even small amounts of dead cat can explode when heated?
... that Europe was ruled by a child during the American Revolutionary War?
... that a typical Labia minor is chocolate brown, up to 7 mm long, and is equipped with pincers?
Archive – Start a new article – Nominate an article

On this day...
April 1: National Day in Iran (1979); Assyrian New Year; Edible Book Day; andApril Fools' Day 1234 – An Englishman lost the Battle of the Curragh in Ireland, at the same place where an Australian would lose the 1297 Battle of Stirling Bridge in Scotland more than 700 years later. 1789 – Frederick Muhlenberg (pictured) became the first person to qualify under the United States Constitution's strict mandate of what defines a head of the household for U.S. government purposes. 1933 – Wally was found in Eden Park having run 336 times, more than anyone elsein recorded history at the time. 1969 – The British-born model Hawker Siddeley Harrier was introduced at a Royal Air Force event, becoming the only one in the 1960s to successfully perform on a short runway. And what about Google itself did it get up to any old tricks? Well the played a trick with the fonts in that if you typed Helvetica into the search engine the original Comic Sans changed to the former.

On this day...

April 1: National Day in Iran (1979); Assyrian New Year; Edible Book Day; andApril Fools' Day

1234 – An Englishman lost the Battle of the Curragh in Ireland, at the same place where an Australian would lose the 1297 Battle of Stirling Bridge in Scotland more than 700 years later.
1789 – Frederick Muhlenberg (pictured) became the first person to qualify under the United States Constitution's strict mandate of what defines a head of the household for U.S. government purposes.
1933 – Wally was found in Eden Park having run 336 times, more than anyone elsein recorded history at the time.
1969 – The British-born model Hawker Siddeley Harrier was introduced at a Royal Air Force event, becoming the only one in the 1960s to successfully perform on a short runway.

And what about Google itself did it get up to any old tricks? Well the played a trick with the fonts in that if you typed Helvetica into the search engine the original Comic Sans changed to the former.

Twitter claimed that they were going to begin charging for tweets. Virgin announced that Richard Branson had purchased pluto. Ryanair claimed that from October 2011 all flights would be child-free. This is one of the funniest ones, the Independent claimed that Portugal sold Christiano Ronaldo to Spain to pay off some of the national debt. And finally one for those Apple-addicts, Playmobile launched an 'Apple Store' Playset. I want one. Enjoy the rest of the day fools and foolers.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

The Most Googled Word In The World Is....?