A few days ago I discovered Google Auto Awesome and was pleasantly surprised. Take a bunch of photos from the same place, of the same scene, and Google would merge the photos into a little animation. In my case, the animation was of runners in the NYCRuns Shore Road 10K reaching the midway point to head back for the finish. The photos share a common background, blue sky with some buildings in the distance, the road, clearly delineated by grass on one side and the sea railing on the other side. Check it out at https://plus.google.com/109153989599275468311/posts/cF6t72rD4Mj
At yesterday's PPTC Al Goldstein 5K Summer Series, Race #5, I thought I would be able to re-produce the animation by taking photos of the runners at the starting line. My duty at the race was to stay with the last few runners to make sure everyone finish safely, so I had no need to be with the front users. I took ten photos of the users dashing off but alas no animation was made. I don't think it's because of the camera I used, a traditional digital camera from which I uploaded the photos via iPhoto into a Picasa album. I think it's more because in Prospect Park the trees and bushes on the side of the road appear as a big blob to Google's computer eyes. It cannot discern the forest scenery. It probably didn't help that every now and then someone would go against traffic and passed too close to my camera. So no animation. Live and learn.
The photos, sans Awesome animation, are at
https://plus.google.com/photos/109153989599275468311/albums/5902126806398015457
Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts
18 July 2013
08 January 2013
GOOGLE INVADES THE DESKTOP
Pardon me for making an obvious observation, but Google surely has invaded the desktop. Most people still think of Google as the search engine, some people even use Google Doc (or is it Google Drive now?), and Chrome the web browser is quite popular. What convinced me to dig up the topic again is that Google's online photo-editing app is not bad. I've been using Google Plus' sync function to get photos off my Android phone. The photos are stored with my G+ account and are available to Blogger etc. How convenient. Since most of my friends are in Facebook and not in G+, any photos I want to share in Facebook I would still need to first download them to the host computer (in my case, my MacBook Pro). In the past, in the case of a cartoon photo, I would use Comic Life to add text, speech bubbles, etc. I know, I don't use Comic Life to its full potential, as my cartoons are usually one-panel, sometimes not even the frame is needed. But I never got comfortable with Desktop Publishing apps, even one as simple as Swift Publisher. I can also use Photoshop Element to add speech bubble and such, but that's an overkill, especially when Comic Life is better suited for the task.
The online photo-ed app at photos.google.com really did the job for my MulchFest/No-Pants cartoon. My needs were simple - crop, add speech bubble (or thought bubble, to be exact), then some text. I am sure some casual computer users will find the interface unwelcoming, merely because it is different from the typical desktop app's. I have no trouble though. It's just a matter of clicking on the various tools and see what they can do. Under Decorate I found the speech bubble I wanted, almost. Ideally, there should be something that denotes electronic text. The thought bubble works for me, but I am sure some day I will need to show what a character sees on a computer monitor or a tablet screen. Such bubble should be rectangular and its tail should be zigzag-like, somewhat like the lighting symbol in Gatorade logo or Pikachu's tail. I was impressed with the various options available for adjusting texts. Color, font size, orientation, even different typefaces, not bad at all. I would love to see some dingbat fonts though, as I love them symbol fonts a bunch. It is somewhat annoying though, that if you need to separate the lines with a hard return. In other words, if you type your text without pressing Return or Enter, you'll have one long line of text. I am sure future version of the software will improve.
The online photo-ed app at photos.google.com really did the job for my MulchFest/No-Pants cartoon. My needs were simple - crop, add speech bubble (or thought bubble, to be exact), then some text. I am sure some casual computer users will find the interface unwelcoming, merely because it is different from the typical desktop app's. I have no trouble though. It's just a matter of clicking on the various tools and see what they can do. Under Decorate I found the speech bubble I wanted, almost. Ideally, there should be something that denotes electronic text. The thought bubble works for me, but I am sure some day I will need to show what a character sees on a computer monitor or a tablet screen. Such bubble should be rectangular and its tail should be zigzag-like, somewhat like the lighting symbol in Gatorade logo or Pikachu's tail. I was impressed with the various options available for adjusting texts. Color, font size, orientation, even different typefaces, not bad at all. I would love to see some dingbat fonts though, as I love them symbol fonts a bunch. It is somewhat annoying though, that if you need to separate the lines with a hard return. In other words, if you type your text without pressing Return or Enter, you'll have one long line of text. I am sure future version of the software will improve.
13 March 2009
What Is Your GoogliverseID?
One line in the theme song for Secret Agent Man TV show goes
They've given you a number and taken away your name
Sounds harsh, doesn't it? So dehumanizing? While I am all for treating people as flesh-and-blood beings with feelings, I support assigning numbers to people when it comes to keeping track of these sentient beings in the computer.
I spent many years doing network account administration and know first-hand how frustrating it is to deal with account names created from last names and such. It may be fine for a while to assign Joe Block the name blockj but it won't stay unique long. It is a small world and eventually some other Joe Block will join the company. So what do you do? blockj2 ! Even if the name seems unique, it only takes a big merger to introduce another person with the same "unique" name, perhaps in another country or another U.S. state. Best to go with some sort of numbering system.
Would it be nice if someday when Google takes over the world, we all can be assigned some unique Google Universe ID, or GoogliverseID for short. Perhaps the ID can be made up from the time and date that we were born plus latitude and longitude info, something that cannot be duplicated.
I am doing research for my high school reunion next year and it is a pain not knowing if the John Smith I found is the same John Smith from my year. Some names may appear unique to me but turns out to be popular in that person's culture. With GoogliverseID, that problem will be gone forever. Go ahead, Google, just take over the world already!
They've given you a number and taken away your name
Sounds harsh, doesn't it? So dehumanizing? While I am all for treating people as flesh-and-blood beings with feelings, I support assigning numbers to people when it comes to keeping track of these sentient beings in the computer.
I spent many years doing network account administration and know first-hand how frustrating it is to deal with account names created from last names and such. It may be fine for a while to assign Joe Block the name blockj but it won't stay unique long. It is a small world and eventually some other Joe Block will join the company. So what do you do? blockj2 ! Even if the name seems unique, it only takes a big merger to introduce another person with the same "unique" name, perhaps in another country or another U.S. state. Best to go with some sort of numbering system.
Would it be nice if someday when Google takes over the world, we all can be assigned some unique Google Universe ID, or GoogliverseID for short. Perhaps the ID can be made up from the time and date that we were born plus latitude and longitude info, something that cannot be duplicated.
I am doing research for my high school reunion next year and it is a pain not knowing if the John Smith I found is the same John Smith from my year. Some names may appear unique to me but turns out to be popular in that person's culture. With GoogliverseID, that problem will be gone forever. Go ahead, Google, just take over the world already!
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