Okay, so Google Goggles is an app that isn’t really anything like Google Glass… But it’s still very cool. With so many of us now take for granted the ability to do high-speed web searches on the go through our mobile phones, increasingly via speech-to-text rather than fooling around with touch screen keyboards, the ability to search by snapping a photo is the next step in this natural progression of easy mobile search. Try it out today by downloading the app for your Android device through Google Play or for your iPhone here, or through the App Store. Now watch some British dude run around San Francisco while showing you how to use Google Goggles:

As you might expect, Google has really been pushing their own Android apps lately, but clearly recognizing the continued popularity of the iPhone, they offer a rather impressive suite of Google apps for those devices as well.

There are obviously limitations to what this new technology can do today, but the implications are incredible when you consider what they must be cooking in the lab. For now there are just a handful of types of objects that Google is able to reliably use for photo-to-search, but many of them are the types of items we encounter and would use Google Googles to interact with every day:

If Google isn’t overhyping what Goggles can do, then we are entering a strange new world my friends. It already boggles the mind to think about where we’re at with voice-to-text, facial recognition, Siri/iris, instant translation and on and on. Considering the speed with which technology is moving, can you imagine what our mobile devices will be capable even a year from now.

Full disclosure: I have the app for my iPhone 4S and it’s pretty amazing to witness the technology “in action”, but I haven’t yet had the occasiona to use it in the “real world”, unless taking pictures of random things around my apartment counts. Seeing Google search a sentence off the front of a magazine or pull up information about my toothpaste isn’t quite as impressive as getting back instant information about a landmark of painting. I have however been very impressed with my other Google apps and after witnessing the intelligence behind apps like Shazam, I’m relatively certain much more intelligence photo-to-search is just around the corner.

Has anyone else actually unleashed this beast and put it to the test? I’d be interested to hear your real world experiences. Do the Goggles live up to the hype?

As workers left, the Vermont State Police bomb squad and hazardous materials team arrived. So did the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive, police, fire departments and other emergency workers.

Jill Glavan from WPTZ set the stage early:

WCAX’s Jennifer Reading live tweeted the event as well:

As panic set in it quickly became clear that Fox 44′s Nick Natario would have to put the festivities for his 1 year anniversary with the station on hold while the story developed:

With a major story clearly unfolding the print media, including the Burlington Free Press, began retweeting as updates crossed the wires from their own Matt Sutkoski:

The not knowing had the entire VT twitterverse on the edge of our seats as several tense hours passed without much concrete information, but then WCAX’s Jennifer Reading confirmed all of our worst fears – the suspicious device was a musical greeting card! What kind of diabolical monster could have hatched this plan? But before authorities could worry about that, the threat had to be neutralized. Fortunately, even little ol’ Vermont has a bomb-detecting robot for just this type of situation.

As police and the press waited at a safe distance, the robot marched in to the building without regard for its own safety. It wasn’t long before our hero emerged from the building holding up a FedEx envelope containing a greeting card (YOU HAVE TO SEE BFP’S PHOTO ON FACEBOOK!):

A bomb squad officer took the package from the robot and casually handed it to a Vermont state trooper. The crisis was over.

Taylor said the Fed-Ex package containing the musical greeting card was only supposed to contain documents. Wiring in the card powered the music, and the wires were what made the package suspicious, he said.

And the great St. Albans greeting card scare of 2012 ended without incident. But let this be a warning to you kids – don’t give people greeting cards. Swinging by the grocery store for a piece of paper with someone else’s poem on it has always seemed like a great way to tell someone you really don’t care that much… but now your thoughtlessness might also lead to a day-long crisis involving a variety of federal agencies and first responders.

It does seem kind of pathetic, but at the same time, Bing has to do something because they’re getting steamrolled along with all other search engines that dare to go toe to toe with the big G. Also, as strange as this might seem, it’s not unheard of. Struggling cable networks run advertisements during prime time shows on their biggest competitors. The objective is simple – put your ad in front of the most eyeballs. It may be a desperation move, but the alternative is fading into oblivion without even putting up a fight. Besides, Microsoft isn’t exactly low on cash, despite the fact that only 3% of respondents to March Pew Study chose Bing as the search engine they use most often, versus 83% who chose Google (screenshot of the bloodbath below). So, even though each new version of Internet Explorer seems to be worse than the last, Microsoft has always brought in most of their revenue through other channels. So while they may currently be failing at teh internetz, they’ve got the cash on hand to stay in the game. And yet…

Oooof… That’s right, the same number of people who chose Bing as the search engine they use most often, chose “don’t know” as their answer to the same question. So, while it seems a little strange, it’s clearly understandable why Microsoft would be advertising its own search engine/services on Google, rather than just on Bing itself. If you were running a traditional offline advertising campaign, would you run ads only your own billboards in Canandaigua, NY, or would you advertise in Times Square, assuming you had the finances?

What might seem even more odd is the fact that Google is running ads on Bing through Microsoft Adcenter. While Bing desperately needs to get its ads in front of Google’s march larger user base, Google must have a different motivation for advertising on one of their biggest competitors (heh). My guess would be that this is more of a domination play. More specifically, ensuring continued dominance. Sure, few people are using Bing, but Google would prefer if no one was. What’s the next best thing? Having links to Google at the top of search results. All of that being said, each search engine seems to be bidding only on very specific phrases on the other’s advertising network, but I’m sure there’s a lot more to it than you’ll see in the examples we discuss in this post.

Keywords Searched on Google & Bing

When reviewing the screenshots below, keep in mind that these are all anecdotal examples and very subjective because different ads show based on time of day, advertiser budget, ad rank, impressions, and countless other factors. Just don’t be surprised if you attempt to reproduce any of these Google or Bing searches and see completely different PPC ads. The first search discussed below is a perfect example.

Ads for “PPC” on Google & Bing

As you’ll see, Google Adwords and Microsoft AdCenter are both running ads on both search engines. As I mentioned, the ads displayed change constantly so you’ll see that I actually had to supply 2 separate screenshots of the Bing search results to show you that both Advertising networks are running ads on Bing, whereas you can see both in high positions in the single Google screenshot:

Ads for “Pay Per Click” on Google & Bing

The ads that display when you search for “pay per click” are basically the same as what you see for “ppc” searches on both search engines. The main difference you’ll see here is that I was able to trigger the ads for both AdCenter and Adwords in a single set of Bing results:

Ads for “Adwords” on Google & Bing

It looks like both Adwords and AdCenter are bidding on this keyword on MS AdCenter because you can see both of their ads in the Bing results, however I don’t see AdCenter running ads on Google. I’ve actually supplied 2 Google screenshots because at one point there were a handful of advertisers, but at the moment I’m only seeing Adwords itself.

Ads for “AdCenter” on Google & Bing

It doesn’t appear that Google has any interested in bidding on the branded keyword that is the name of it’s Microsoft competitor – “adcenter”. This seems a little odd given that they are trying to compete on many of these other terms, but if I were to speculate I’d say that they probably tested and found that clicks on ads generated by these searches produced lower quality leads for Adwords.

Ads Showing for Searches Unrelated to Advertising Services

The 4 example searches above we were clearly advertising related searches, but you’ll recall that we opened this post with a screenshot with an ad displaying for the search “Bing Maps” on Google. That wasn’t an isolated incident. As you’ll see below, Bing is running ads for a variety of “Bing” specific searches on Google, from videos to shopping:

This goes back to my point about desperation – Bing understandably feels the need to run ads on Google if they want anyone to see them. The odd part about running ads for these other services is that Bing’s pages already rank #1 organically and they aren’t competing against anyone else in AdWords. They may not be hurting for money, but this seems like a rather stupid waste of it, IMO. They even take it to an extreme, bidding on just the “Bing”. But again, note how that triggered Bing’s ad when I searched it at one point, then only a competitor ad, and then no ads:

By contrast, I didn’t find any examples of Google running ads for more generic searches like these on Bing, however I do find it funny that Google Maps ranks #1 for a generic “maps” search on Bing. (Their own map service ranks #4):

Yeeeesh… Self esteem problems, Bing? Man, I hope they don’t read this post! Seriously though, they should probably be given credit for this because while they would probably like to consider their maps better than Google Maps, they seem to be recognizing that Google Maps is superior or at least that it’s the service most users are probably looking for when doing a web search for “maps”. They could easily argue, as the alternative to Google, that other results should rank higher because they’re more relevant to the “Bing audience”, but I think they’ve made an ethical choice here, worthy of praise.

Why You Should Be Using Microsoft AdCenter, Despite Limited Impressions

Setting aside the appearance of desperation Microsoft AdCenter displays by having to advertise on Google, it’s not a bad PPC service. The interface and account structure leaves a lot to be desired, but AdCenter has come a long way over the years. In many cases I’ve actually seen AdCenter campaigns produce higher conversion rates than Adwords. Unfortunately, the lack of search volume on Bing and Yahoo! is a limitation for the success of those campaigns. High conversion rates are the goal of anyone advertising online, but with only a fraction of internet users naming Bing or Yahoo! as their browser of choice, the total number of visitors/conversions you’ll actually be able to bring in is going to be limited. At the same time, it will help you get your ads in front of as many people as possible, so I always recommend expanding out from Adwords to AdCenter if you have the available budget. The best part is that you can export your Adwords campaigns and import them to AdCenter relatively easily, usually with just a few minor tweaks.

Note: Given that we all know that Adcenter powers PPC ads on Yahoo too, we decided not to clutter things up with additional, unnecessary screenshots. Given impressions, budget, etc. the ads won’t ever be exactly the same but they’re rarely the same even sticking with one engine and performing the same search multiple times.

There have been a lot of questions about reviews lately in the forum, and we wanted to address some of the more common ones. But before we dive in, keep in mind that we’re very much aware of all the issues that you’re experiencing, and we’re working hard to overhaul and improve our reviews system so that you stop experiencing these issues. Yes, it’s going to take time, and we know that can be frustrating. But we hope the work we’re putting into long-term fixes today will significantly improve your experience soon.

You don’t say? This has actually been an ongoing issue with Google Places since… well, basically the beginning. Formerly the Google Local Business Center, Google Places officially announced their launch on April 20, 2010 and complaints about reviews going missing were common within months. The issues persisted through 2011 and here we are well in to 2012 with the same problems and Google is now saying that lately there have been questions in the forums about missing  reviews. Nice.

The answers probably won’t placate most business owners, but Google did at least make an effort to explain some of the more common problems people are asking about before they direct you to the forums for any other questions:

On the page you’ll find that you can expand each of those questions for a detailed response (notice I didn’t say solution?), but what I think most of us are looking for is some type of action we can take to get our missing reviews back on Google Places. Unfortunately, here’s what they’re currently telling us:

How do I get them back on my listing?

Long term solutions, eh? Well, I guess no one could accuse them of coming up with a quick fix! In fairness, why put a band-aid on a stab wound while you’re still plunging the knife in to your victim. Okay, that’s a little dramatic, especially given that Google Places is a free service and Google really has no obligation to help any other business owners. But you get my point. They’re talking about working hard on their top priority of finding solutions to these review problems… But the problems are years old, and these people have been busy launching silly Google Maps awareness games. One would think that a search engine with the goal of providing the most relevant search results to its users would be dealing with important matters like this before “games”, but I digress.

Long story short, at the moment Google is long on explanations but short on solutions. There’s some indication that many reviews, if they weren’t spam, should eventually show up in your listing again. In the meantime, it seems like the best thing you can do is get more legitimate reviews. Google provides detailed criteria explaining why reviews may be removed or considered spam as a guide for what not to do, but there’s nothing wrong with encouraging customers to leave you reviews. Just the other day kconti at Mednet Tech wrote a post about getting more Google Places reviews specifically for Medical Practices, but the techniques generally apply universally, especially #4 and #5:

4) Reach out on Social Media

If you’re active on social media sites, like Facebook, Twitter and Google+, reach out to your fans and followers. Post links to your Google Places listing encouraging patients to post reviews.

5) Send an Email Blast

Do you currently ask for an email address on patient forms? If not, this is a great opportunity to reach all patients at once with practice news or information. Send out an email blast, with a link to your Google Places listing, asking satisfied patients to post reviews.

So Google Places support may not be particularly helpful at the moment and they aren’t promising a resolution for missing reviews on any specific date, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t steps you can take while they work out the bugs. I think my pal Andy Dufresne said it best – it comes down to a simple choice:

The good news is that some Vermonters weren’t content waiting around for someone to bring the event back for 9 days at the end of summer so they’ve taken the initiative to start Vermont’s own club, Green Mountain Dock Dogs. Vermont Design Works has temporarily published a splash page while we develop a full site that will launch later this month. In the meantime you can keep up with all the latest news and events at the official Green Mountain Dock Dogs Facebook page.

Whether you’ve got a jumper of your own or you’re just a fan, be sure to head down to the Lake House Restaurant in Bomossen, VT for the Dockdiving Fun Jump on May, 20 at noon. If you do have a dog you’d like to enter into the event you can preregister now or simply register at the event starting at 11 am. All dogs and breeds over 6 months old are welcome to compete!

If you can’t wait that long and you need to get your DockDog fix right now, check out the high flying action from this promo video posted by the DockDogs national parent organization. The slo-mo shots are incredible:

While it’s unnecessary in my opinion, mainly because you can learn all about Google Maps features through tutorials and videos on the “Start Here” mini-site, I suppose the development of Google Cube was to create buzz. It even links over to “Start Here”, so the whole purpose is probably to create awareness of unknown features and push people to using them. Cube only briefly mentions each of the features in relation to the various levels in the game, but it doesn’t really teach you how to use them. For that you’ll definitely want to check out Start Here.

Below are screen shots of one of the game levels – “London Underground” – that is designed to show public transit routes (subway in this case) as part of the more advanced “Directions” features. Google Maps also provides walking and biking directions, in addition to standard driving directions:

These 3 screen shots are typical of what you see in each level of the game. An intro screen with a bit of information about the Google Maps feature being highlighted, the game play screen, and then the “level completed” screen which again mentions the feature being highlighted. Toward the end I think they realized the game was a little too quick/easy so they scrambled to add another level, which was this rubik’s cube-ish thing that pieced together maps from various cities. This didn’t offer any useful/informational benefit, it was strictly to add to the “challenge”"

And your reward in the end for wasting a few minutes of your time with this thing? Simply being told that some other nerds did it faster:

They also link to the equally pointless, though slightly more entertaining “real world” version of Cube that the Google people created:

If you’re looking for a time waster, check out Cube. If you want to really learn about how you can benefit from the wide variety of features now available in Google Maps, head over to Start Here. At Start Here you’ll be able to learn all about the different types of directions, inside maps (for large malls and other public spaces), exploring street views, creating your own maps and much more. Personally I’m impressed by the free GPS offered to Android phone owners, but as an iPhone owner I’m actually quite jealous. Of course, I would be in the market for a new phone if my iPhone was to self destruct.

Awesome! Obviously this is a goof, but the weird thing is, we’re definitely at the point now where technology makes this technically possible. Still, something tells me Apple won’t ever build spontaneous combustion capabilities for Siri any time soon. Just a hunch.

Also, while it’s funny to imagine this happening to an iPhone thief, that’s all you would ever get to do – “imagine” it. You wouldn’t get to see the look on the guy’s face or anything. I think I’ll stick with my “Find iPhone” app so I can send the police over to the thief’s home to retrieve my device and arrest Siri’s captor. (Desperately trying not to go off on a tangent about what Siri with Stockholm Syndrome might be like). Even an 8 year old Tennessee boy was able to use the app to track down the crook who stole 2 ipads from his home, so I highly recommend it if you have either of these devices. I particularly enjoyed this story out of NYC where the police officers made the iPhone beep to determine who was actually holding the stolen item, which is obviously a necessary feature if you’re trying to identify a criminal in a crowd:

Garland entered the woman’s Apple ID into the “Find My iPhone” app, which used GPS to pinpoint location of the phone. It was near Eighth Avenue and 51st Street, traveling south.

When Garland and his partner, Sgt. Richard Coan, got to the location, Garland hit the “Play Sound” button on the app and instantly heard a beeping sound emitting from a man stepping out of a Food Emporium supermarket near Eighth Avenue and 49th Street. The man was identified as George Bradshaw, a 40-year-old resident of Brooklyn.

So again, even if one day Siri is capable of self-destructing, I highly recommend going with the “Find iPhone” app instead. But, if for some reason you insist on seeing your iPhone screen cracked, I recommend a fun little app called “AppFusion”. This is a 6 in 1 app that offers a variety of time-wasting screen manipulation effects, one of which is the screen “cracking” wherever you touch:

I was going to use this to prank my little nieces and nephews with this app but they’re tech savvy enough that I doubt it will work. Grandparents on the other hand…

The 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom Las Mareas Residences located in the private gated community of El Tesoro are currently under construction, as is the Pangas, Beach Club and the hotel is just around the corner. You can stay up to date on Las Mareas’ progress by liking their Facebook page today.

Again, this is just a placeholder splash page while we get our more in-depth project underway, but feel free to let us know what you think. There’s obviously limited functionality at this stage, but the beautiful full-screen slide show does make you wish you were down in Tamarindo watching the huge leatherback sea turtles lay their eggs on the beach rather than looking out the window at today’s April snow flurries here in Vermont!

http://www.lasmareas.com/

Seriously though, the real point here is that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles need to keep an eye out for Genghis Frog and Napoleon Bonafrog! We all remember those classic characters from the 1980s TMNT cartoon right? No, just me? Well, I assure you they were all too real and popular enough to get their own action figures, both of which I may or may not have owned. Proof they exist below (but I swear it’s NOT me in the videos):

This year’s event features fixed price specials for all budgets at over 80 restaurants in dozens of towns across the state (most with veggie options). Most restaurants are offering dinners at $15, $25 and $35 per person, but I’m seeing a lot of additional specials, like the $10 lunch at Our House here in Winooski. There will also be several special events held throughout the week. To participate in the 2012 VT Restaurant Week, you need to make sure you make a reservation at one of the participating restaurants. Further details from the official website:

1. Choose a restaurant below. Menus are posted as we receive them.
2. Make a reservation for Friday, April 27-Friday, May 4. Mention you are coming for “Restaurant Week.”
3. When you arrive, ask for the Restaurant Week menu and enjoy dinner for $15, $25 or $35 per person. At select locations, try lunch for $10 or less!
4. Go to our Facebook page or 7 Nights and talk about your dining experience.

The 3rd annual Restaurant Week benefits the Vermont Food Bank, so head on out to help two great causes – help the less fortunate AND spend a week stuffing yourself full of reasonably priced food you haven’t tried before. (What do you mean that second one isn’t really a “cause”?). The Restaurant Week’s website also provides details on how you can donate $10 to the Food Bank from your mobile phone:

Take out your mobile phone and text the phrase “FOODNOW” (that’s one word, no quotations) to the phone number 52000 and you will make a $10 donation* to the Vermont Foodbank.

I love just about every type of food so I’m going to have to choose wisely. Right now El Gato and Mexicali both have my stomach growling. How about you? Let us know what you’re planning to check out this week in the comments below.

For full menus and more information about the 3 specific restaurants mentioned in this post, check out their official websites by following the links below:

• Our House Bistro - http://www.ourhousebistro.com/
• El Gato Cantina - http://elgatocantina.com/
• Mexicali Grill & Cantina - http://www.mexicalivt.net/

(Links to the offical websites of other participating establishments can be found on the official Restaurant Week site)