MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA – Google today announced a new innovation that could, according to co-founder Sergey Brin, “radically transform the information transit mechanisms and search cohesiveness by providing many replicable features for application between providers and end users.” The technology, which will begin release late next year, resembles a cellular phone in appearance but is actually a multi-use communication tool.
Code-named Albino, after Larry Page's high school sweetheart, the product will allow users to do all the basic phone functions from surfing the web and making phone calls to synchronizing calendars and looking at the earth from space. The tool goes further than any product currently commercially available, however, by adding several new features, including “Vehicular Functionality,” a tool that will steer your car from space or allow someone else to steer it.
“We always knew that Google put the 'G' in 'grand,' but this new Albino phone goes a step further. By giving everyone access to everyones life, this could tear down all the walls of society,” said privacy expert and renown technology litigant Manfred Reeves. “People will get over the weirdness shortly and come to embrace the idea of everyone else is doing.”
Advertisers, meanwhile, are lining up to get a piece of the new pie. McDonalds is in negotiations to have exclusive “wake-up call” rights, making all alarm sounds variants on the “I'm Loving It” theme. Coca-Cola is developing a delivery system that can get anyone a coke at anytime, anywhere. Safeway is looking to purchase ad space on the roofs of people's homes so that its messages will be read from space through the Albino.
Not to be outdone, E-Harmony, the web's leading single service, is looking to expand its dating service by incorporating the new information about people's personal habits into its compatibility levels. Founder Neil Clark Warren released a statement through his webpage praising the Albino and then turned philosophical. “If every couple in America were equipped with one of these phones, think of the love, respect, mutual admiration and lifelong compatibility that would result. My only advice to young couples would be to not misplace the dang thing.”
Google, meanwhile, wants to keep the focus on its bread and butter. “While the Albino does have secondary features that application developers, third party innovators and advertisers will turn into productive outlets...the main focus of this innovation is search,” said Brin, his lisp forcing press room reporter to stifle a chuckle. “As long as we can continue to move toward the eventual goal of total search monopolization, we're happy.”
Search plays a major role in the Albino. One feature that has gotten rave reviews in beta testing thus far is the “Think-it Contact List” or TCL. All a user must do is press the first numeral of a 7 digit phone number and “think” of the rest. According to Google's Terms of Use, the Albino will complete the number 98.9% of the time based on “historical preference, audio sensors, statistical probability and related data.”
Another tool that promises to be widely embraced by the general public is the “Auditory Interpretation and Search Tool” or AIST (pronounced the way it looks). According to Brin, AIST “turns sounds into words by matching the auditory signal of the speaker with a databank of recognizable sounds.” The concept is similar to Google's Translation tool, except the deciphering is between sound and word instead of two written languages.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt sees AIST as a money factory. “Think of all the blind people out there, who can't be reached by our current ads,” he told a group assembled at the World Computer Fair. “AIST opens this market of sometimes wealthy consumers to our advertisers.” Google is currently working on a way to add computer generated music to converted auditory ads to help improve their persuasion.
To release Albino, Google will give current beta testers invitations to send to their friends and the product may not be not be publically available for a few months. When asked how to get Albino early, Brin chuckled and game some simple advice: “Sign up for Gmail.”
“All in all, I think it's a great thing. A great thing, indeed,” Reeves said reflectively. “All I need now is an invitation.”
No comments:
Post a Comment