Otaku Gadgets

Google has recently shown a lot of ambition by releasing its transltion toolkit into 345 different languages. These languages are extremely varied and range from the likes of Abkhazian to Zulu. This is the toolkit that Google uses to improve and ultimately create new language pairs that can be used for automatic translation works. And the best part for Google is that all the work is done by someone else, for free!

Continue reading “Google’s Translator Toolkit Is Helping The Machine Become A Better Translator” »

Okay, so I am only joking about the end part (or am I?) but the real robots part is, well — real! There’s a post on FrAndroid that shows a couple of Google engineers making real robots that have Android phones as their brains! Skynet had T-1, we have the G-1 to be scared of. Thankfully, this don’t do much. Yet.

Continue reading “Real Robots Powered By Android — The End Is Nigh! [Android]” »

This had to happen at some point and it has happened. Google is hell-bent on moving everything we do to the cloud and hence they have acquired Picnik. Picnik is something that I have sometimes used to quickly edit pics for using on my posts instead of firing up PhotoShop. That one’s a resource hog. So what does Google intend to do with it? Do you even need to be told?

Continue reading “Google Acquires Picnik Online Photo Editor [Google]” »

Now that the excitement around the iPad is settling down and people are passing their final verdicts before they actually get to touch one for real, there is renewed interest in what the new iPhone might bring to the fray. Whilst there are a lot of speculations as to what might be coming for us, there are certain things I believe Apple needs to do if they want to hold on to their lead in the innovation and appeal department. There are also certain things that users would like to see in the iPhone that they already see in other competing phones. So let’s dive right in.

Continue reading “iPhone 4.0: What Apple Should (And Might) Do [Smartphones] [Apple]” »

Now now, do not cringe like that. There are people out there who actually enjoy Bing. In fact, Bing has some really helpful things — like when you search for flights and all. But Bing replacing Google’s search behemoth almost sounds blasphemous to the ears of the dedicated web geek. However, there are reasons in this world that make people do such things and those reasons can be summed up in one word – business.

Continue reading “Apple To Replace Google Search With Microsoft’s Bing On The iPhone [?]” »

That’s right folks, you are probably going to see ads in Street View too. Currently, Street View is littered with images of poster, banners (real ones I mean), billboards and such advertising areas that have been captured as they were when the Street View team was rolling through. Needless to say, they are about as updated as a Pentium II PC. Google is looking to change those still image eyesores into actual eyesores that have updated content.

Continue reading “Google To Ad-ify Street View” »

If you have chosen to buy a locked Nexus One Android phone from a carrier like T-Mobile, you are in for some hard time if you cancel prior to “120 days of continuous wireless service”. If you cancel before 4 months from the date of activation (presumably) you are going have to pay cancellation fees. And those fees are pretty hefty too. You will have to pay up the difference between the price you paid for your subsidized unit and the full retail price of the unlocked and unsubsidized Nexus One. That means if you have bought it for $179, you will end up paying $350 as cancellation. So far so fair but it gets worse.

Continue reading “Nexus One Makes You Bleed Both Ways [Updated]” »

Google has finally made the Nexus One official — the most hyped and leaked Android phone ever. I mean if multiple tech blogs get out full hands-on reviews before the official launch or announcement, you haven’t done a good job of keeping the thing secret. In fact, I don’t think Google tried very hard. Clearly, they have no clue how the hype game works.

As a result, what could’ve been a really great release event with lots of excitement became just another press event without much excitement. Now don’t get me wrong, the Nexus One truly is the best Android phone till date but I couldn’t manage to remain excited about through what must’ve been over a month’s time. It wasn’t new when it was announced and nothing ground-breakingly new announced about at the even either. So overall I am not very happy with how Google handled this release. With that out of my system, let’s take a look at the phone itself.

Continue reading “Nexus One Is Now Official” »

Like I have been saying for quite some time now, the age of the tablet is definitely upon us. There is no doubting the fact that every company that has ever made a portable computing device is thinking about making a tablet. In fact, companies with no experience at all in such things are stepping in. Not to mention all the startups with their own tiny ideas about what a tablet should be like. I say tiny because they lack the vision (and the funding) to do something really extraordinary. It takes visionaries to build entire markets out of nowhere.

One such visionary has definitely been Google. As an entity, it has really done a lot of things differently and has shown the world that an ethos built around simplicity and minimalism can really make a lot of business sense. But  when the search engine giant started to diversify into hardware, it really was something to take a look at. They are still getting there actually, as they are expected to release the first ever Google branded hardware tomorrow (the 5th) at the Android conference at Mountain View. Yes, I am talking about the Nexus One. But I am more excited about another piece of news that has not attracted as much attention as it probably should’ve.

Continue reading “Google Tablet V/s The Apple Tablet V/s The Rest” »

Here we are once again, with a round up of all that is hot in tech in the past few days. A lot has been happening as usual with the year end approaching. The anticipation for the new year is building with so many different companies readying their devices for launches through the first two quarters of 2010. Of course, not all of them are talking about it but the leaks do that work for them, whether they like it or not. So get over to the other side and get updated.

Continue reading “Catch Up Monday: New Verizon Phones Leaked, XPERIA X10 On Radar Again, ION 2 Confirmed And More” »