darlings
we Are Impressed.
who-we-are-in-RL has written a Cover Story for Esquire Mexico (and we had no idea she even spoke Spanish……)!
now – due to Syndication (in Other Languages – wait! does she speak Those Too? blimey) Issues and the fact that the magazine needs to be on the Newsstand for a while *saidvaguely* – we are Not Allowed to release the whole article.
so here are a few bits.
just for your edification.
can you see where it says “Sophia Stuart”? – there’s a little red star on the top of the T – take a look.
and then in white – in verysmallletters?
*gasps*
SHE CREDITS US!
para teamgloria inc.
indeed.
(or it could just be that she set up a Company in our name for Tax Purposes……but whatever it is – we l o v e it.)
so this bit says:
Horowitz is a good example of a “power user” of Google’s magic. He switches between the grand vision: “We’re building this for the ages,” to the prosaic and practical daily application: “I use Google+ 80% to do ‘considered social sharing’ amongst the people I choose to share pictures with. And the other 20% of my presence on the network is my work-based activity.”
William Gibson once wrote, “The future’s already here, it’s just not widely distributed” and that’s the bit Google really wants to change, taking expensive technology only used by large companies (like video conferencing) and making it available (and free) to everyone.
translation =
Knowledge, and context, are important, but the real magic is that you can now talk naturally to Google and it replies: “Sequential conversation is now possible now with Google Search – but we’re still at the very early stages of what this can become,” said Huffman.
This means that instead of the quick fix answer, you can now carry on a conversation, of sorts. For example, if you want to know which movies Tom Cruise has been in, you click the microphone icon on Google search in the Chrome browser and ask the question directly. If you then say, “how old is he?” It will assume you’re still talking about Mr. Cruise and say, “Tom Cruise is 51 years old”. Ask “Whom is he married to?” and Google will say “Katie Holmes, Nicole Kidman – and Others” (sorry, Mimi).
Does all this natural language parsing mean that we will start to treat our digital devices as sentient beings?
this is a very meaningful bit (after we Decoded it using Mr. Google Translate) *mistyeyed*
Kiyo Fujishiro, Senior Manager, Head of Digital Media, MTV Networks Japan, Viacom International Media Networks, saw Google step in after the terrible earthquake in 2011 when Google.org, the philanthropic arm of the tech giant, came to help Tokyo’s residents in distress.
“They set up Google Crisis Response to provide on-the-spot guidance including evacuation areas with maps, and Person Finder to locate those lost in the devastation. They also started Mirai no Kioku (“Memories of the Future”), to gather images, videos, digital memories, of scenes in the ravaged areas before the tragedy occurred, collating material from Street View, Picasa and You Tube, so what was lost can once again be shared with Japan, and also the world.”
It’s not just pre-earthquake Japan that Google is preserving and pouring into its Knowledge Graph for future generations. The World Wonders Project is re-creating 17th Century Paris in the digital sphere from scanned in old street maps, books and other ephemera. The Google Art Project has digitized many world-class museums. One complete project is a full rendition of Mexico’s Museo de Antropología’s entire collection, in situ, so you can do a virtual walkthrough as if you were there.
and this is how the piece ends (with a quip and a wink, love – how darling of her.)
There are going to be a few glitches with this brave new world. In Minority Report when Cruise’s character runs from the Law his self-driven car is over-ridden – literally – by the police and he’s trapped inside.
Science fiction authors often took their devices into the dark side. A digital assistant, with enough intelligence (more than a human) might well start to appear to act as an independent mind.
Google is very tight-lipped about this. When asked, “Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and worry that you’re building Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey?” the conversation with execs swiftly veered back to describing the nice virtual assistant with the soothing voice who helps point out your flight is leaving for Zurich in an hour’s time.
But it doesn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to picture starting to dial a number from your contacts and Google asks, “Are you sure you want to call her? Based on our analysis of your emails, phone calls, her text messages and a cursory look at her updated Google+ profile, we’d say you’re asking for trouble, sir.”
w e l l .
*impressedlooktocamera*
that is all Rather Clever if you ask us (and we assume you would, as you’re here).
we hope we can share the whole piece with you if it gets syndicated to a magazine that speaks the former colonial overlord of the British Empire language At Some Juncture.
but it was Deeply Interesting.
and we ADORE Mexico.
especially our Editor-in-Chief in Mexico City – lovely chap.
*smiles*
we’ll be writing for them again “para teamgloria inc”
love that bit most especially.
