It does strike me as odd that is private but I need to install a chrome extension to use it and there is a prominent 'Sign up' button on the top right corner.
I am also struggling to understand why the need to install a chrome extension to see search results. Feels like a lot of users will get lost on this first funnel step.
I'm not sure it's fair to say that 'Apple is trying to shut down hey' as it sounds like that same situation hasn't affected any other apps before. Apple is choosing to enforce their terms (which you can disagree with - i think charging 30% is way too much) and that is about it. A lot of other apps have faced the same situation before and only certain ones have managed to fall into the specific 'readers' exemption.
I'm also a bit surprised that a team like the one I guess hey has, did not see this coming, as it's pretty clear in the apple store terms and anybody with some iOS and app store publishing experience would have been concerned about that from day 1.
This just remembered me about the MIT system created by Terry Winograd in 1970 called SHRDLU.
I have always considered that you need an environment to create an artifical intelligence. The basics for a real progress are to be able to learn and if you cannot 'feel' the environment that becomes really hard. There are some basic concepts needed for a 'natural talk' you cannot learn if you cannot perceive things (lets say for example dimensions, temperature, contour).
To overcome those problems SHRDLU created kind of a virtual environment and results from my point of view are really awesome (keep in mind this was done in 1970).
Very 'funny' and usual problems. I really enjoyed the reading. I have found myself many times helping people on points like 1 and 10 (copy&paste ---> keyboard&chair problems).
I have also found a lot of people which is relatively new to internet and who don't see a difference between 'Internet', the browser and google. You speak to them, and they say: my page does not work, it's not active (when you have checked it is working). Then, with further investigation you find that they are typing the domain name on google, and they get no result, which, of course doesn't mean the page is not working. They just mix google, browser and internet.
It's similar to when you hear 'using the internet' exclusively refered to web browsing, as if web was the only thing internet had.
I think the main concern which groups both concepts is 'usability'. I really don't know the reason why, but many sites seem to forget that concept. Whatever the intention behind your site is, you need to think about usability. If your site is not really usable, you will pay for it in the future; it doesn't really matter that you have a really cool design. If your site is not usable you are in big trouble.
So, when making a website or an app, you should ask yourself: is this the most logical and the easier way to do this? If the answer is no you should probably keep thinking and searching for a solution.
At least, from the previews, it seems IE9 is fitting much more to the standards and getting really good results on ACID tests.
Anyway, adapting websites for IE6 was really disturbing... strange margins, propietary parameters and a large etcetera that could really help make your life unpleasant.
Hope IE9 really does as good as it seems from reviews.
Of course one should be 'worried' about privacy with his/her data on facebook, but i don't think one should care less with the information google has about a huge amount of people.
Just as a reminder: they know what you look for on the web (google itself), they know what you talk to your friends (gtalk), they know what you get via email (gmail), they know what videos you watch to (on youtube) and they now even have a browser which is being adopted by a lot of people pretty fast.
Maybe one does not use all those services but many people do, and depending on how you look at it, probably google has a lot of more 'private' information about one's life than facebook.
That, of course, doesn't mean 'FB disconnect' is a bad idea. It's just that i get 'scared' when someone who know a lot about you (google in this case) build something trying to look as they 'protect your privacy'... (i also keep in mind that google is not prone to providing data about users, but they have the ability to)
I'm sure they will notice much more benefits than just improved trading times.
For example: improved infraestructure management, overall performance increase, fast patches for security bugs, and a long etcetera.
Of course, as JoachimSchipper says, if the applications on top of the OS ar crap, a different OS won't solve the problem, but to have a good underlying OS is a good start.
I don't really agree on the point about lunch. It really depends on who you have lunch with. I had lunch many times with really interesting people from who you can learn a lot and even share ideas and think about new startup projects. Sometimes, closing to yourself is not a good idea. Speaking to different people broadens your mind and that is absolutely necessary.
On the other side, i really like the experiment behind the shower ;)
Probably google's profit is much bigger in search market because you are more directed to searching for information on a service you may buy (and so, a company may be interested in advertising) than when you are watching a youtube video.
From my personal user point of view, i have searched very few times in youtube (just as an example) for a company or a product and then clicked on an ad. Just on the other side, i have done such thing many times on google.
Maybe my advice was too short. I was just willing to encourage him to try. Obviously it takes very long to feel really comfortable with a language, but it should not take very long to be able to develop some simple application as he is asking for. Sure that app won't be programatically and algorithmically perfect but it may work as a first start.
If you are working on an existing and quite extended concept (like to one you're explaining) i think your best chance is to try to find better ways to do things on the type of app you are working on. You can really make something work if you introduce significative changes that just make things easier and more comprehensible. There are quite a few amount examples of that (google just started when quite a few search engines did exist, which was one of the reasons they did so well in a pretty crowded market? They did provide a search engine that worked much better than the others and that was just willing to be a 'search engine'; no banners on front page, no overloated designs...)
svg can be pretty slow rendering on some browsers, specially if it's complex. So it really depends on the usage. It's like comparing it with jpg. It really depends on what you want to do with it.
I'm sure if fb had a feature to allow checking who has seen your profile, a lot of people would be happy to pay for it. Maybe it could be a new way for facebook to make money? I'm not pretty sure facebook users have more value than they cost to facebook (based on money from ads (to my knowledge, the only way fb gets money from users 'directly) vs bandwidth/server/development expenses)
I am also struggling to understand why the need to install a chrome extension to see search results. Feels like a lot of users will get lost on this first funnel step.