Star Wars Easter Egg!

Google's New Easter Egg

Google are known for their Easter eggs when you type into the search bar and something happens.

Google have done it again with the upcoming release of the new Star Wars movie. While they were very open about the changes to a Star Wars themes on their applications. This one was quietly released with a cryptic Tweet by Google:

Hint: Search the beginning. #ChooseYourSide https://t.co/W9sjR80Q05

— Google (@google) November 23, 2015

What does this mean? Well if you type and search into Google: ' A long time ago in a galaxy far far away' you will get a really nice surprise! Check it out.


Or if you just want to know, have a look at the screenshot below:

Google search has turned into the the open credits of Star Wars! Now all we need is the majestic music as well! The Star Wars hype is real.

Star Wars - Choose your side!

Choose wisely young padawan

Google has gone full blown Star Wars fanatic by letting you choose which side you would choose. However, that is not all. When you do choose your side. Google related apps will also follow along with the Star Wars Theme (Personally,  I chose the dark side, since I am partial to the colours).

Head over to the website and have a look yourself: http://www.google.co.uk/starwars/ 

Choose your side

The chosen side will correspond with which side you have chosen:

In Gmail, the obvious change (this may not take immediate effect) is the background is now Star Wars related. Similarly when you install the extension for Chrome, your new tabs will now open up as a full screen wallpaper of images from the new movie! This is also the same effect with Chromecast app backdrop.

Star Wars events  (especially the release date of the movie) are automatically added into your Caldendar events. Downloading the Star Wars app on your phone will automatically push a Star Wars theme to your smartwatch.

With YouTube, the volume and progress bar are now glowing lightsabers (colour is dependant on your side). Additionally the volume bar will also produce the sound of the lightsaber when hovered over or adjusting the volume.

Google Maps the street view person is now a storm trooper and the navigation is either a tie fighter or an x-wing. With Waze, the voice navigator is now C3PO. With Google Translate, you can now translate into Aurebesh too!

While nothing is useful, it does provide a reminder and also excitement towards the upcoming new Star Wars the force awakens movie.

Oh and if you have forgotten, the movie comes out on December 17th 2015.

May the Force be with you!

My Random Addictions: Happy Halloween!

Halloween is upon us!

While browsing through the internet, I came across a really interesting website that would aid in selecting a horror movie to watch on the day or any day that you have an itch for horror.

It is a site called 'Reel Scary', which I think the punned was severely intended. Going past the name of the site, the site separates the films into three distinct categories: Disturb, Gore and Suspense. Each film that is listed are rated by these three and depending on the nature and the kind of the horror film, the higher or lower the scores for each category. There is also the highest average of all three categories as well as for the individual categories. 

The site also lists the definitions of each one: 

Disturb: Something that sticks to your head and was highly disturbing

Gore: Lots of blood, flying limbs and organs

Suspense: Those that keep you guessing, waiting and glued to your seat

Reel Scary website

Therefore, these categories will help you choose what kind of horror film you want to watch whether it will be the disturbing kind, the gorey type or a more suspenseful kind of  horror film. 

What is your favourite horror movie? Have a look and see and pick a great Halloween movie!

Happy Halloween!

Source: https://www.reelscary.com/ 

The Map of the internet

Ever wondered what the map of the internet looks like? Now you can!

I found this website and thought it would be useful for people to perceive the internet visually and alternatively. For starters the visualisation used are those of circles. The size of the circle determines the amount of traffic it gets ( basically how popular). Users' form links by switching between websites and the stronger the link, the closer the circles will be which makes the structure of the circles.

Google.co.uk etc, would of course, be one of the biggest. What is more fascinating is that you can see what sites are the most popular within countries. This is particularly interesting as searches and site popularity are different within different countries. For example, Baidu is bigger than Google since Baidu is their go-to search engine or Naver for South Korea.

It makes you think how different people search is and how they optimise for each country or how closes linked sites are with other sites. Can this be changed to increase traffic etc?

Play around with it and see for yourself!


This link and source for this is http://internet-map.net/

Crowdsourcing a Song

Remember when I blogged about Twitch plays Pokemon? Now there are people trying to create a song through crowdsourcing. The lyrics will also be crowdsourced too! A melody is being generated in real time and each note is voted by the crowd or also known as wisdom of the crowd.

I have viewed the song and played and so far it does sound really pleasant! Sometimes you just have to wonder that the introduction of the internet has created incredible things and produced amazing feats.

For the source more information, check out the website where it is being generated https://crowdsound.net/

Also vote and help create something unique!

Screenshot of the website https;//crowdsound.net

DuckDuckGo: an alternative search engine

DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is an alternative search engine that does not track what you search. It emphasises heavily that privacy of their users are important so they do not track. This is opposite to search engine such as Google. It also highlights that it gets the best sources rather than the most sources (Which Google search engine does but this is slowly changing). 

Google search engine is all about personalisation and each google search can be different, if two different users search the same thing with personalised ads etc. DuckDuckGo is different where you will not be tracked when left and there are no personalised ads and just ads which fit with your keywords. DuckDuckGo also has the feature of bangs (!) that can directly take you to the website without searching on the page. For example, if I search '!twitter' (not case sensitive) and click on it, this will directly take me to the site. Very nifty.

Personally I have tried it and really do think it is a great alternative to Google search. In fact, it seems a lot of people think the same as there was a 600% increase in traffic when the Snowden revelations occurred about the tracking of the NSA. This search engine has seen its popularity rise and is seriously competing with Google.

It provides everything that is the opposite of Google, but that is not to say it is all a good thing. Are we too used to Google or are we just forced to use it since everyone does? Can DuckDuckGo become the next top search engine? What do you think?

Sources: https://duckduckgo.com/about 

               http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/business/2015/10/talk-talk-hack-how-safe-our-data-                hands-big-companies

The Useless Web

While many parts of the internet is utilised for business, products and entertainment. There are some sections of the internet that is made that are entirely...pointless.

The site http://www.theuselessweb.com/ lets you click and directs you to a random site that is useless in every way. Some examples of the sites that you are directed to include: eel slap, mouse pointer location, a mango and many more.  Yet it shows and proves that the internet is vast and can be used for anything if effort is ensued. The internet gives you potential to curate, remix, go viral, communicate and much more.

The site is indeed pretty useless, but nevertheless, it did remotely entertain me and did give me a sense of curiosity of what other useless sites that could be found via this.

Check it out if anything and see for yourselves. What websites did you get and what can you do with these websites?

http://www.theuselessweb.com/