Loading Bars

Have you ever tried using Google Translate to help your work or understand a text passage from another language? I checked it out a few moments ago just for kicks and it came out with something that's rather interesting.

 Check out the image attached. If you understand Indonesian, you'll know that you should never even attempt to consider asking Google to translate text for you.

Loading mentions Retweet

@tintinnya alerted me earlier about google maps supporting directions for Jakarta. I checked it with my 2G iPhone over wifi and it does indeed offer directions by car and by foot.
 
It doesn't offer bus/transit routes yet but we can expect it to follow sometime soon.
 
If you're in other cities in Indonesia, feel free to check it out on your iPhones and let me know the results.

Sent from my iPhone

Loading mentions Retweet

I used to think Twitter Search was going to be a serious threat to Google's search business and people began writing about it too. It seemed that way since Twitter took over Summize and turned it into Twitter search (I hear you say, "Are you saying it's not?").

For a period last year, my use of Twitter search overtook my use of Google in searching for relevant topics and discussions. In using Twitter as notes during conferences, meetings, and events, I relied heavily on Twitter search to scrounge for my notes, thoughts and observations. In a way, Twitter Search was becoming much more useful than Google. It's so easy, type one or more search terms, hit return and you're off. Because it searches its own network that's nowhere near the size of Google's scope, it's so much faster. It even lets you know if there are new results.

So yes, it's easy to see why it may be a threat to Google. However it's also easy to see why it's not.

Reason one: Unlike Google, Twitter does not prioritize search results so it's easy to find lots of noise among the signal. Plenty of search results are duplications and because of its nature, the results are real time, so there's more noise to deal with with every refresh. If you look up a popular topic, you'll land on page one of the results, and if you wait long enough before going to page two, you may find yourself looking at the same results because newer results have taken over page one. Even worse, you wait longer, and you get newer results on page two or three than the page one result you had originally.

Reason two: Twitter search is not about relevance, it's about currency and immediacy. You will get the latest mention of what you are searching for but it may not be useful to you. You can however refine your search by going to Twitter Search's actual website and go to the Advanced Search rather than use the built in system in your home page (that is if Twitter hadn't forgot to include you in their latest overhaul), but first of all, not a lot of people know this. Secondly, it's linked all the way down on your home page it's as good as invisible.

Here's a page to help you refine your search without going to Twitter's Advanced Search site. It's a list of search operators you can use from your search field but don't get me started on using the built in search in your home page, they need to get that fixed.

Reason three: Twitter Search does not search for anything before January 1 of each year. Twitter at the moment prevents you from looking up anything that was mentioned on Twitter before the start of the year. On the option to filter results by time, it lets you pick years 2008 and 2009 but you will not get a result for 2008. Go ahead, try it. Search for something that was said on December 2008 or earlier. At best, you'll get zero results. That or Twitter will tell you, "The page you were looking for doesn't exist". It doesn't even recognize years 2006 and 2007!

For the moment, this limitation will hinder Twitter Search's competitive drive to rival Google but people do use the two services in different ways and for different purposes. Until Twitter is able to open up its entire database since day one for search results, it will never be a rival to Google. What it will be though, is a complement. People understand that Twitter is about what is going on now, not about what happened last year and they will search accordingly. Twitter search is for current results, for everything else, just Google it.


By the way, this marks my 24 thousandth update on Twitter.

Loading mentions Retweet

So this morning Google Street Maps launched in Indonesia to accompany Google Maps.
 
Street maps is a service that has been available online for quite some time from various providers such as Yahoo! and Garmin and available on devices like Nokia and Blackberry smartphones.
 
With the announcement of iPhone 3G by Telkomsel, many wondered when Google will finally join Yahoo! In providing a street directory because iPhones rely on Google Maps for its built in map application.
 
While it may have been a rather embarassing situation for the world's most prominent Internet company, They may have just been biding their time for the right moment.
 
As of now however, iPhone's Map app and Google's mobile map site are still unable to access the latest data from Google's servers.
 
Once the mobile maps are up, we can begin to anticipate black vans roaming around Indonesian streets capturing images for Google Street View.
 
Sent from my mobile

Loading mentions Retweet

In the technology world, there are no bigger trade events than the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and the Macworld Expo, usually held in San Francisco, both of which happen to occur in January of every year. At least twice in the past, the events ran in the same week, creating a nightmare for technophiles who wanted to attend both.

In 2007 in particular, just about everyone in the technology scene wanted to be in San Francisco on the same day.

What was it that got technology bigwigs and journalists making a special trip that morning from the glitz and glamor of Las Vegas, Nevada, all the way to chilly San Francisco, California?

Read more at Jakarta Globe

Loading mentions Retweet