Street View Australia is Live

Google Maps StreetView is now available for Most of Australia and Japan!

The quality of the images is impressive and the coverage for Australia is stupidly comprehensive with all major cities are most populated rural areas covered, as indicated by the blue patches in the image below.



Because I can, here's the view from my old commute in to work:

View Larger Map

...and here's one of my favourite places in WA:


View Larger Map

The Real Problems With Knol

I'm a big fan of Knol, and I seem to have been spending an undue amount of time defending it from critics who, I believe, have the wrong end of the stick.

But. Just because most people are judging Knol using an inappropriate comparison, doesn't mean it's perfect.

So what could Knol be doing better?

Simple Internal Article Linking
It's pretty common for the specialist topics featured in Knol to reference terms that are unfamiliar to readers, but out of scope for the current article. Everything2 and Wikipedia have shown that jumping from topic to topic is compelling. Knol needs a simple mechanism that lets you create internal links automagically using topic text.

Related Knols
Everything2 does this really well though the use of soft links. E2 builds a related articles list by tracking transitions between articles. Given Google's prowess when it comes to finding related advertisingcontent it should be cinch to dynamically find Knols related to the current one. Internal linking would make this even easier, as would article tags. Which brings me to:

Article Tagging
The idea of a formalized taxonomy is clearly a non-starter. Fair enough, but that still leaves a healthy requirement for non-hierarchical cataloguing. Tags are a well established metaphor for cataloging to identify similar or related content. The 'alternative titles' field will makes it easier to search for a topic that's referred to by different names, but doesn't do much to help group or explore similar topics.

Topic Shells
E2 uses Node Shells to act like a shelf for a given topic. It contains all the articles with the same name written by various authors displayed as a kind of summary, indicating the reputation details for each of the contained Knols.

KnolShells would answer one of the criticisms related to ranking and linking to a topic covered in Knol. Currently you need to link to a specific author's Knol, or a search for the topic. KnolShells would let you link to the topic and offer all the available articles. This is particularly handy combined with internal links to streamline internal navigation, letting authors link to a topic rather than a particular article as it eliminates the 'first-in-most-linked' effect.

Improved Ratings and Reputation
Reputation systems are always problematic, but it would be nice to offer more statistical information on the popularity of each article beyond the a ambiguous 5 star rating mechanism. The E2 model uses the thumbs up / thumbs down model with the added ability for experienced users to flag particular articles as 'Cool'. Popular articles can then be used to populate the 'featured Knols' on the front page.

Analytics
I like to know how popular my articles are and get an idea of who's reading them. Seems like a no-brainer to include Google Analytics the way they did Adsense.

Outbound Links
I fully understand the spammy reasons outbound links are no-followed, but it would be nice if this rule was applied more discriminantly. It would be very nice to see outbound links become 'followed' based on rating, author reputation, or/or time since posting. No one wants Knol filled with V1agr4 links, but there's no reason people shouldn't be able to link back to their own sites, and no reason those sites shouldn't get the associated link juice.

RSS Feeds and Feedback
Knol doesn't yet have a very robust feedback system. I'd want to subscribe to someone's New Knol Feed, and I'd like to subscribe to comments and reviews on Knols as well. As a Knol author email notifications when someone comments on, or reviews, my articles would be good too.

A private message mechanism for people to send messages to Knol authors within the Knol ecosystem would be a handy way to let people comment or suggest changes without publicly posting a comment or going through the 'edit' process.

In Closing...

These ideas certainly aren't comprehensive, but I think seeing some of these changes would really improve Knol. What do you think?

Google Knol Released. It’s Not Wikipedia.

Google Knol, announced last December, is now open to the public.

Google describes Knol as:

A platform for sharing information, with multiple cues that help you evaluate the quality and veracity of information.

The mainstream media and blogosphere have both labelled it a Wikipedia killer, but the comparison to Wikipedia is lazy and superficial.

As I supposed when it was initially announced, the purpose of Knol is fundamentally different to Wikipedia's mission. Where Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, Knol is a library.

Wikipedia delivers a single, collaborative, and verifiable article on every topic worthy of inclusion (and the editors aggressively kill new articles that aren’t). That fine. That's great even, it's like a living version of Britannica that tends towards consensus over time.

A Library of Knol(edge)

But that’s not what Knol is about. Knols aren’t about consensus, they're about authority. Lots of authors willing to stand by their claims. You judge the veracity of a Knol the same way you do a book, newpaper article, or tech paper – by looking at the comments and reviews of other readers, looking for citations, and reading up on the author (their background, affiliations, and other articles).

Just like your local library, Knol will contain a collection of opinions, knowledge, and experiences backed by the author’s name and reputation . Just like a library, many topics will have several 'books' written by different authors–often contradictory.

Rather than consensus articles with a neutral voice, for contentious or subjective subjects you can browse a number of personal opinions and experiences and form your own consensus. It’s noisier but it provides a personal perspective that’s inherently missing from an encyclopedic approach.

Check Out My Knowledge

Anyway, Knol looks pretty cool, I’ve set up my Knol Biography and I’ve started creating Knols based on some of my more popular E2 write-ups. You can check out Flooded Member Detection to find out if that’s as dirty as it sounds.

It’s worth sending a shout-out to the people over at Everything2 who have been doing the Knol thing for years and who still have a few tricks (particularly in the reputation system) that Google would do well to copy consider.

Authors, Start Authoring!

If you're an author or a subject matter expert, you can and should be using Knol to demonstrate that to the world. If you've written a book or authored a paper Knol is a way for you to demonstrate to potential readers that it's worth paying for more of your stuff.

I can see this being a great resource for professionals and academics who want to share their latest insight or discovery outside the four people that will read their journal article or internal white paper.

A New Tool for Research

For readers I think Knol provides an excellent addition to existing web-sites, including Wikipedia, as an additional source of information to browse when investigating a particular topic. Chances are most people won't be going to Knol directly for answers, but they're bound to end up there through Google searches before long.

iPhone v2: I Still Don't Buy It

Apple released iPhone v2 at their WWDC yesterday to much fan fair and Internet coverage.

I've probably established my preference for Android fairly well at this point, but with the changes announced in the iPhone's second incarnation I think it's worth pointing out a couple of deficiencies that still exist in His Jobs'ness's most gifted child.

Without true native background services the iPhone remains a shiny toy that offers the same-old mobile applications with a glossier skin. It's an improvement, but it's incremental. The game hasn't changed, it's just being played in a new stadium with nicer uniforms.

Before I go on let me state for the record that I'm a fan of the iPhone. If Apple had been selling them at stores the day it was unveiled I would have gladly ripped off my right arm and used it to beat my way through hoards of Apple fanboys to get one.

Fortunately for my dexterity, by the time iPhones were in stores I'd convinced myself that a total COO of almost £1000 was just too rich for my blood. I bought a new generation Nano instead and called it even.

I mention this because I really do think the iPhone is an impressive piece of kit. It's beautifully engineered and delivers both style and substance. The array of shiny touch screen mobiles now available can probably be credited to the iPhone setting a new standard in phone hardware and UI design.

But I'm still not buying a new iPhone.

Even with the 3G data and significant price drop I'll still be holding off my long overdue phone upgrade for when Android hits the shelves. Why? Because the iPhone is a really nice implementation of just-another-phone. Android promises to be more than that:

1. Background services. The iPhone's push notification service is a 2nd class add-in compared to the fully integrated background Service and Notification models that are central to Android. More than any other factor, Android's native background service model exposes possibilities that just aren't possible on the iPhone.
   
   They are a true game-changer. Android's Alarm mechanism ensures that services don't consume resources if they're not needed, but when they wake up they have full control over when and how they're going to update and how they choose to notify the user. The iPhone generously lets you pick a notification sound. Right. In Android you can write a service that monitors the game and announces the current score using a Morse-code vibration pattern while flash the LEDs in the winning team's colours.
   
   Without the artificial dependency on Apple's 'notification server' your service can update based on anything you like--Internet data, GPS location, device orientation, whatever.
   
   I could go on, but I'll save it for a more appropriate forum.


2. Map-based applications. Still no native support for embedded Google Maps. Not that that's Apple's fault, but it's an undeniable bonus point for Android.


3. Sandboxed distribution. Jailbreaking aside, developers are still locked in to the Apple approved iTunes distribution channel. If they want to charge for their apps, they still have to pay. Fail.

Lets face it, my complaints are fairly developer focused. A lack of background service support isn't likely to slow down the thousands that have been patiently waiting for a 3G iPhone when they rush to queue up at their nearest Apple store on the 11th of next month.

Android's power and flexibility as a developer platform is well established, if it can match the level of iPhone consumer devotion remains to be seen.

Android for Professionals

It's been quiet around here for the last few months, and I can't blame a lack of exciting developments at Google.

As Tony over at Blogoscoped mentioned, the reason for my infrequent postings is now listed and available for pre-order over at Amazon:


It's still a few months away from release, but Professional Android Application Development has taken up every spare moment of time (and plenty that weren't spare) but I think the effort will be worth it.

In other Android news, the top 50 place getters in the first Adroid Developer Challenge were announced a couple of weeks back. According to an anonymous comment on this site, at least one of the semi-finalists hails from my home-town of Perth(!). Nice.

The good folk at Android Community also put up some footage of the Android presentation at Google I/O last week. It's an impressive demo that features a look at what's becoming an increasingly polished UI, shown off particularly well with the street view featuring accelerometer control.

There's also been some discussion on a likely Android Marketplace--a Google hosted catalog of 'trusted' Android applications. The concept seems like a win / win, giving developers' applications visibility while guaranteeing a level of safety for end-users. It would be particularly nice if Google Checkout was integrated for developers that choose to monetize their mobile apps.

Massive Earthquake Hammers China

A series of massive Earthquakes hammered China this morning, the largest of which registered 7.8 on the Richter scale.

How big is 7.8? The image below from my Earthquake map mashup shows that the 'rumble zone' (the area over which the quake could be felt) covered all of China.


There's been over a dozen after-shocks registering over 5, so the 'impact' zone is harder to view, but if you look at the 'Australia' tab they're only showing the largest quake which gives a better idea of its scale.

For comparisons sake the 'damage zone' (the area susceptible to severe damage) covers an area about the size of Ohio or Austria. In the image below it's represented by the darker red circle about the size of Thailand.


The humanitarian result of a quake of this size is predictable. You can read more about the effect of a quake of magnitude at Google News.

"Explore This Area" with Google Maps

Google Maps Australia are slowly rolling out a feature that let's you "Explore This Area", essentially a 'universal search' implementation for Google Maps.

When you search from the Australian implementation of Google Maps (http://maps.google.com.au/) the message in the screen shot below appears in the search results panel to the left of the map and displays pictures, videos, and community maps based on the current map location.

Clicking 'explore this area' overlays tiny geocoded image thumbnails onto the map as well as displaying arrays of photos, videos, and community maps that are found within the currently visible map boundary.



While this additional information is currently available only using the Australian map search, you can do a search anywhere in the world and see the same extended results.

A nice touch is that as you pan and zoom your map everything updates dynamically, adding, removing, and reordering the videos, pictures, and maps available based on the new map location. Very slick.

There's also a new 'drop down' array to the right of the search box which displays your 'saved locations' for easy access.

Find Your Way in WA with Google Maps

I hail from the small-town city that is Perth in Western Australia. If you were feeling generous you could say that Perth does not have a reputation as a fast moving, innovative city ready to embrace change. So it's great to see the local government embracing the future, the locals will now be able to schedule trips on the on-time, on-budget Mandurah rail link using Google Transit!


View Larger Map

It's actually really neat and I congratulate Transperth for being the first Australian transit authority to get involved with Google Transit. Nice one!

In related news, you can now add new places to Google Maps for any physical location in Australia (or New Zealand or the US). So if there's a local landmark, or a new business that doesn't appear on a Google map search you can go ahead and add it yourself.



Nice touch, and a good way to ensure visitors can always find a bus to catch to get home from a day's site seeing.

Android v iPhone: SDK Showdown

Apple responded to Google’s Android SDK gauntlet in some style last week when they released details on the much anticipated iPhone SDK. Is it a legitimate challenger? Let’s take a look.

Feature	Android	iPhone
SDK Cost	$0	$99 (to allow distribution)
Distribution Cost	$0	30% of the list price
Distribution Channel	Open	iTunes exclusive
Mashable Maps?	Yes	No
Location Services?	Per Hardware	GPS Pending
Accelerometer?	Yes	Yes
Multitouch?	No	Yes
3D Graphics Support	Yes	Advanced
Background Services	Yes	No
Application Interaction	Supported	Disabled
Native P2P Comms	GTalk	No
Actual Phones that Support the SDK	Q4 2008	4 million and counting

Free versus Really Not Free

A 30% cut of the list price? Even my agent would blanch at demanding that sort of cut. The $100 fee is just baffling. Why charge? I’d love to have a play with the SDK but I’m not convinced it’s 10 books worth of entertaining. I’m not writing mobile apps for profit so where is the return on my investment? It’s a system designed to provide a smooth distribution channel for approved 3rd party providers but it’s going to discourage those who are simply ‘iPhone curious’.

Android’s approach charges nothing to experiment and there’s no distribution cost. If one of my experiments turns into something people will pay for I won’t have to hand back a third of the price to Mountain View or Cupertino.

Foreground versus Background

Techcruch pointed out this gem in the iPhone docs. Your iPhone applications can only run in the foreground. If you switch away for any reason it will close. In the process of creating examples for my book on Android development I found that background services are one of the most exciting features of Android, albeit not the flashiest, so it’s very disappointing to see this explicitly disallowed on the iPhone.

Foreground only apps are great if you’re writing games (clearly the big target for Apple) but 90% of the time my mobile lives on my desk or in my pocket until it rings, flashes, or vibrates.

Background services let you create applications that extend this event driven model. Maybe it’s an app that keeps track of the football and vibrates the phone when your team scores, or maybe it changes the LED color when your team's ahead or behind. Maybe you write a service that sends your location to your friends so they always know where you’re at. This is the sort of thing that’ll make my mobile more useful not just more entertaining.

Interprocess Communication

The iPhone explicitly disallows communication between processes, to the extent that each application and all its data are completely sandboxed. There’re a lot of good security reasons to do this but Android manages to handle it without the sky falling. Then again, if your application is only allowed to operate in the foreground there’s not much point trying to communicate between two apps.

Native Map Support

Since the iPhone release Google Maps has been its most popular application. In Android I can write on-phone mashups, on the iPhone I can’t.

Bottom Line?

The iPhone SDK is a way for game and mobile developers to write the same sorts of programs as they always have but on the shiniest new device on the block. That’s great if you want a 3D, accelerometer controlled version of breakout, or to play Spore on your mobile, but it doesn’t bring anything new to the party. Well, apart from an extortionate 30% licensing fee.

Three of the four iPhone apps demoed at the release were games. The iPhone looks like a great platform for mobile gaming. It’s about the size of a PSP or DS and the interface has some great possibilities. While it’s an excellent portable platform for running software the SDK restrictions make sure that no one is ever going to download an iPhone application that fundamentally changes the way they use their phone. An iPhone will always look, feel, and work the way Apple designed it.

Android lets you write applications that do more than just run on a portable device. It has the potential to create software that extends the functionality of the phone itself, to change how and why you use your mobile phone completely. More on that later.

Android Updates

Google released a new version of the Android SDK today.

There's a range of improvements, the most impressive being the expansion of mapping services to include forward and reverse geocoding as well as business lookups. This feature plugs a big hole in the LBS and mapping functionality previously available in Android.

Other improvements include a new iteration of the still-being-worked-on Android GUI (screen shots here), a new Animation class for creating animations in layouts, and an improved MediPlayer class that supports additional audio formats.

Also, while I've been away getting married for the last month there's been a few important Android annoucements. Here's a quick summary of what's been announced so far this year:

• LG have joined Samsung in committing to releasing an Android compatible phone towards the end of 2008 / start of 2009.


• The Android Developer Challenge has been extended until April 14.


• You can now file bugs against the Android SDK.

Android Developer Challenge 'Open'

It's a couple of days late, but those of you with a bright idea for a mobile app and a hankering for a slice of US$10 million in angel funding should head over to the submission page for the Android Developer Challenge.

Google is accepting submissions from today until March 3 for the first of two rounds of development funding. The 50 most promising entries will get $25k and be in the running for ten $250k and ten $100k prizes.

Project submission involves uploading a compiled .apk file along with your contact details and a readme file. You can include any additional information you like in the readme -- instructions for use, design documents, or a narrative describing your vision for your application.

The entries will be judged on their (i) originality, (ii) use of the Android platform, (iii) polish and appeal, and (iv) indispensability. So the perfect project will be one of a kind that leverages all the Android specific features, looks amazing, is well polished, and once installed you'd never want to remove it.

The challenge is more 'Iron Chef' than 'Dragon's Den', so the working application you submit is definitely the most important part of your submission. They're not looking for your plan for the $25k - $275k in prize money, they want to reward what is already a polished indispensable project. A detailed 'pitch' document submitted with a dinky 'proof of concept' is probably not going to get a look in.

Be sure to check out the new Terms & Conditions, here are some highlights:
- You can submit your application using any of the SDKs released on or after 3rd Jan.
- March 3 is a hard deadline.
- You can submit updates to your project(s) at any time until March 3.
- You can submit projects as an individual, team, or business entity.

The danger of this 'show me' rather than 'tell me' approach is that it is a reward for work rather than a submission for funding. The initial winners will be the development teams that have been able to implement and polish the most functionality within the competition time frame -- most likely the developers with the least need for funding to continue their development.

There's also the question of multiple similar applications. Obviously they'll be up against it on the originality criteria, so you'll need to make sure yours is the most polished and feature rich of the entries to stand a chance.

More details on the challenge can be found on the ADC FAQ.

(For those wondering, real-life Android phones are still expected in the second half of 2008)

New Year, New Template, New Direction

2008 promises to be another big year in technology. Apple's 3G iPhones are set to do battle with Google's Android phones, Google looks to take on Facebook on multiple fronts, and a whole bunch of secret (and not so secret) Google projects look set for release.

On a personal note 2008 is shaping up to be pretty massive too. I'm getting married in January and I've just started writing a new book (more on that later). I've also decided to tweak the emphasis of The Radioactive Yak. I'm going to leave the comprehensive Google coverage to Philipp and Tony at Blogoscoped, and the up-to-the-second Google-code-hacking to Ionut at the Google Operating System.

I'll be looking more closely at Google's programming offerings - particularly Android - so expect to see more tutorial posts like How To Program Google Android and Google Mashup Editor. I'll continue to write speculative posts like Google TV and Google World, as well as more detailed analysis of announced services like Android and Knols.


I'll also continue my series on the Google Office and I'll announce the projects I'm working on like Earthquake!, Hit For Six, and what I promise will be an increasingly large collection of Android applications.

Along with content changes I've given the template a fresh new look. I hope you like it and continue to visit and read in 2008!

Don't Believe the Hype: Knols Won't Compete with Wikipedia

Google's announced but unreleased Knols isn't a Wikipedia killer, it's a knowledge base for original thought.

If we're going to accuse Google of stealing an idea give credit where it's due.

Most of the press touts Knol as a Wikipedia killer with the differences explained away as cosmetic changes. They aren't. Fundamentally Knols and Wikipedia articles are two very different things; Knols are about sharing an author's knowledge, Wikipedia is about summarising a consensus.

If we're going to accuse Google of ripping of an idea, let's give credit where it's due -- Knols sound just like Nodes at Everything2.

Citation Needed

The philosophy behind Wikipedia can be summed up in two words -- 'Citation Needed'. It's no secret that Wikipedia is not a place for original research or original thought. If you can't provide a cite for whatever you're entering, don't. And that's as it should be. An encyclopedia is a place for objective summaries of knowledge on a subject. If it's working there should be little controversy as the only items valid for publication should be verifiable and beyond reproach. This doesn't always work.

Anyone who's spent any time in academia knows that you can find a citation to justify your point of view. For Britannica the decision on what the consensus is, is made by people trusted to be objective and expert enough in their fields to make the call. In Wikipedia it's up to editors whose authority comes from having made similar decisions many times before.

The raison d'etre is providing a forum for original thought and research.

Knols are like journal articles as Wikipedia is like an encyclopedia. In journals authorship is key, the quality of the research and the reputation of the author are more important than the reputation of the medium they're published in. Journals, and now Knols provide a forum for people to publish their research, their scholarship, their original thoughts. With Knols, when multiple people do research on the same subject they can be published side-by-side and people can review, comment, rate the quality of the scholarship, and the conclusions all in one place.

Original research isn't limited to academics either, it opens the knowledge base to personal experience. Where Wikipedia is the perfect place to describe the science and timeline of the Apollo missions, a Knol of the Apollo 11 mission written by Buzz Aldrin holds immeasurable value. A Knol written by someone who remembers watching it on TV would be valuable too.

Where wikipedia seeks to create a homogeneous, objective article - Knols can provide fragmented, subjective perspectives that can be evaluated in the context of their authors.

If it still sounds to you like Knol will be a haven only for academic types, have a look at Everything2. If Knols can become Everything2 with professional and academic involvement we all win.

That's not to say that you can't stick Wikipedia articles into a Knol, you could, but there's little point. An army of anal editors and contributors is still a better way to converge on the most correct article. What Wikipedia eschews is exactly what a Knol is perfect for, they should be able to live side-by-side complimenting each other.

You do a search and find my Knol -- but how do you know if it's accurate?

Let's say I publish my findings on the current state of the art of subsea Inspection engineering. For a start you've got the ratings and comments on the article, and if I've done my work well there should be citations for the well established information, but as for the rest you need to research the author - me.

Turns out my honours thesis was on inspection engineering techniques, and I worked in the industry for more than 5 years developing bespoke inspection software. From that you can probably establish that I know what I'm on about but might have a bias towards whichever technology I'd been using. And you'd be right. If you're lucky other people will have written Knols from their own experiences, failing that you can look at my other writing to see if I'm generally considered an unbiased source.

Knols gain the power of life over a journal article that remains a lifeless document.

By providing the ability for users to comment and suggest changes a Knol gains the power of life over a journal article that remains a lifeless document. Rather than peer review by a select group of experts, Knols will be peer reviewed by the wider community. There's a risk there, but one that can be mitigated by giving more 'weight' to other Knol experts. They can learn from Everything2 on this as well.

By collecting all this original thought in one place rather than scattered and abandoned single blog entries or single page web sites, Google groups related thoughts and research together, and gives us a centralised view on fragmented thoughts.

Google Powered Dynamic Charting

Google have expanded their API collection to include fantabulous real time, dynamic charting. They announced it today on the Google Code Blog.

Putting this into your img tag or browser:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=v&chd=t:40,40,40,10,10,10&chs=250x150&chdl=Google|Charting|Awesome

Will produce this:
It's the same technology they use in Finance and Video, so it's nice to see them make it available for all of us. It currently supports line chart, scatter plot, bar chart, Venn diagram, and pie charts.