Google Begins Testing Augmented-Reality Glasses

People who constantly reach into a pocket to check a smartphone for bits of information will soon have another option: a pair of Google-made glasses that will be able to stream information to the wearer’s eyeballs in real time.

Google showed off its first venture into wearable computing, called Project Glass,The glasses are not yet for sale. Google will, however, be testing them in public. In a post shared on Google Plus, employees in the company laboratory known as Google X, including Babak Parviz, Steve Lee and Sebastian Thrun, asked people for input about the prototype of Project Glass. Mr. Lee, a Google product manager and originally worked on Google mapping software Latitude, mobile maps and indoor maps, is responsible for the software component and the location-based aspects of the glasses.The prototype version Google showed off on Wednesday looked like a very polished and well-designed pair of wrap-around glasses with a clear display that sits above the eye. The glasses can stream information to the lenses and allow the wearer to send and receive messages through voice commands. There is also a built-in camera to record video and take pictures.Project Glass could hypothetically become Project Contact Lens. Mr. Parviz, who is also an associate professor at the University of Washington, specializes in bionanotechnology, which is the fusion of tiny technologies and biology. He most recently built a tiny contact lens that has embedded electronics and can display pixels to a person’s eye. 

Early reports of the glasses said prototypes could look like a pair of Oakley Thumps — which are clunky and obtrusive sunglasses — but the version Google unveiled Wednesday looks more graceful. There are reportedly dozens of other shapes and variations of the glasses in the works, some of which can sit over a person’s normal eyeglasses.Project Glass is one of many projects currently being built inside the Google X offices, a secretive laboratory near Google’s main Mountain View, Calif., campus where engineers and scientists are also working on robots and space elevators.Internally, the Google X team has been actively discussing the privacy implications of the glasses and the company wants to ensure that people know if they are being recorded by someone wearing a pair of glasses with a built-in camera.

British Airways fuel efficiancy drive saves a packet

British Airways saved enough fuel to power 550 flights from Heathrow to New York last year following the introduction of an online suggestion box for staff.

More than 200 ideas were submitted by pilots, cabin crew, engineers and ground staff as to how the airline could make further progress towards reducing emissions and cutting fuel bills.

Some of the more unusual suggestions included replacing glass with plastic wine bottles, reducing the amount of water carried in aircraft water tanks, and perhaps most unusually, the descaling of toilet pipes on the Boeing 747 and 777 fleets. Not only did this save some £600,000 as a result of reduced weight, it also improved the performance of the toilets.

The airline has also employed more conventional methods such as reducing the use of auxiliary power units, single engine taxiing and performance improvement packages on more than 40 Boeing 777 aircraft. In total the savings were worth over £20 million.

Jonathon Counsell, head of environment at British Airways, said: “This really has been a team effort. It goes to show that small changes here and there can add up to significant savings. Not only does this help us to reduce our environmental impact, it also saves us money.”

British Airways is already working on more projects to save fuel in 2012, including the use of new, lightweight catering trolleys, headsets and cargo containers.

The airline has also extended a trial of tripleO, a special paint coating that improves aerodynamics and leads to greater fuel efficiency. A Boeing 777 is to be coated, following a successful trial of a smaller Airbus A318.

British Airways is committed to reducing net carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2050.

Facebook Blocks Friend Exporter

A Chrome extension called Facebook Friend Exporter that lets you grab all the information about your Facebook friends so you can import them elsewhere has been in the Chrome Web Store since last year. Interestingly, it became popular just a few weeks ago (you know why), and Facebook has decided to block it for obvious reason.

With the rise of Facebook, the world witnessed the biggest migration of recent times. In case you are wondering, it was from Orkut to FB. Later, Google tried to get its Orkutians back from FB land with the help of Buzz, but failed miserably. However, the company is striking at Facebook yet again with its new service called Google+, and this time it has managed to create a lot of interest among enthusiasts. Finally, something to worry the mighty Facebook. Since the Chrome extension was making it easy for users to pack their bags and leave, Facebook decided to block it.

In response, the developer has posted the following message on the extension's page:

"Facebook is trying so hard to not allow you to export your friends. They started to remove emails of your friends from your profile by today July 5th 2011. It will no longer work for many people. New version with a different design is currently deploying. You might have to do exports daily. It uses a different approach, and I will maintain this version. Just bear with me".

The developer seems very angry over FB's move, but if you check the website's terms, you can clearly see that Facebook Friend Exporter technically violates FB s Terms of Service, which states the following:

"You will not collect users content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission".

Only time will tell whether Google+ can really dethrone FB. Till then, it will be fun to observe the two internet giants take cracks at each other.

Google Plus features and specialties: a Facebook rival is born

Web search giant Google is about to publicly launch its new social networking site Google Plus to compete with Facebook, the world leader in social networking. Will new Google social networking experiment beat Facebook?

Google has tasted repeated failures with its previous social networking efforts like Orkut and Buzz.

Google announced its new product on its official blog. Google+ is expected to feature competitive status updates, photo and video sharing options like Facebook. The platform will highlight a special feature for connections called Circles.

It will help you categorize your friends like intimate friends, relatives, family members and many others in simple manner.  

According to Google, there will be several similar groundbreaking features with its ‘plus’ social networking site, which is now available only for few people for testing. The company is expected to soon unveil it publicly. As per reports, it looks like that if you are a Google lover, you will certainly move from Facebook to Google+.

However, several skeptics are doubtful of the success of Google+ in a time Facebook stands atop with massive popularity. Many analysts have stated that people will think why they needed to shift from Facebook to Google+ since most of their friends are attached with the latter platform.

Let us wait and see what happens with Google+. Being an online leader, it is necessary for Google not to stay back from the social networking, where most of Internet users hang about these days. Google will never be satisfied with the overwhelming popularity of Facebook. 

Facebook Develops New “Awesome” Update

Facebook’s creator and owner Mark Zuckerberg has announced that on the 6th of July, Facebook will be release a new update consisting of “something awesome” developed by his Seattle team. That little something has turned out to be a brand-new update for Facebook users. Friday, Facebook sent out invitations for an event due to be held at Facebook’s Paolo Alto base of operations on the same day.

NEW YORK: Social networking site Facebook is planning to launch a video chat function next week for its millions of users in association with Skype, says a report.

"Facebook will launch a new video chat product, powered by Skype, that works in browser," technology blog TechCrunch said citing a source.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week tipped off press that the company would be launching an "awesome" new product next week that has been built by Facebook's Seattle team.

However, the press invitations to the event did not disclose anything more than "please join us for an event at Facebook on July 6."

The partnership could substantially increase Skype usage, which currently has 170 million users.

In addition, the move would "certainly help Facebook become even stickier for users as they start to have voice and video chat as an option to communicate." It has more than 750 million active users.

The report said that product has been built on Skype and will include a desktop component.

However, it's not clear whether it will work if a user has already installed Skype on the computer, or if additional software will need to be downloaded even if the user already uses Skype.

The social networking site has been introducing various services in order to capture more online users. For instance, it has launched a new payment system -- Facebook Credit -- in India.