Just found out today that Google Maps live traffic feed is now available for Malaysia. Google Maps have been an indispensable tool to many people in the world and Malaysia is no different. Searching for a location has never been so easy and quick until Google Maps came a long and from the day it started till now, there have been vast improvements and features added to it. And although Malaysian users have been getting updates slower than other major countries, we are not forgotten by Google.
If you haven't already heard, Google Plus is now open to public. Still in beta though. So if you have been waiting and waiting for the opportunity to try it out or if you are finally sick of Facebook and want to migrate, the chance is finally here. Am I excited? Well, lets see if enough of my friends move over and abandon Facebook. Facebook has got the stranglehold for more than 5 years and its subscriber base definitely won't die off the way Friendster, Hi5 and Multiply died. Odds are, people will still keep going to Facebook as they have invested too much in it in terms of time, building their friends list, photo uploads, etc.
Google has announced last Friday (the same day as Apples conference on the Antennagate) that it will discontinue the Nexus One smartphone once the current shipment is completed. That means after this, it will be forever gone from Google's list of products. You can see from this official Blogregarding this announcement.
This probably does not come as a surprise because since its launch, the sales of the Nexus One has been dismally pale in comparison to Apple's iPhone or even other Android powered phones. Despite having superior tech specs compared to other Android phones in the market (be it from Samsung, Sony Ericsson or Motorola) and also favorable initial reviews, the Nexus One did not really take off with the bang they wished it would.
We have seen two giants taken products off the market in this short 2 months; Microsoft's Kin and now the Google Nexus One. So far the only software company which succeeded in the mobile/smart phone foray is Apple with its iPhone. What does that tell us?
I was recently given a spanking brand new Google Wave beta account :D With all the hype about it a few months back, I think I remember signing up for the beta account. If you do not know about Google Wave, check out the loooonnngg video below:
Of course I was like a kid receiving a new toy and dived right into it. I'm a little perturbed to explain what Google Wave does. I will quote from Google's website:
"Google Wave is an online communication and collaboration tool that makes real-time interactions more seamless -- in one place, you can communicate and collaborate using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
A wave is a conversation with multiple participants -- participants are people added to a wave to discuss and collaborate on its content. Participants can reply any time and anywhere within a wave, and they can edit content and add more participants as a wave develops. It's also possible to rewind waves with the playback functionality, to see what happened, and when."
Obviously being only the first few who get this account, I do not have many things I can do in it. Fortunately I have another friend who also received an invitation to test the account. Its a great tool for collaborations or online meetings to take place and certainly at this moment in time looks promising. You can't do much yet beside the messaging part, embedding Google Maps and some other extensions.
Whats amazing is that you can see what is being typed in real time. So whatever you need to type, think about it first before you type. Because if you make a mistake, the person on the other side will see it even if you have backspaced to delete it. Of course you can always disable the real time typing, but you might as well use Windows Live Messenger then =)
You can even edit previous messages or your collaborators' messages. All in real time. Watch the video above and you will see what I mean. But would this replace the messengers out there? Well, we'll just have to wait and see.
