Loads a little slower, which might annoy, but I like the look. No doubt the folks at Google have tried all kinds of things and have settled on simplicity, speed, and their corporate style - but this is an option when it all gets boring. The plugin is called Better Gmail 2, and you can get it here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6076
gDay was developed in Google's Sydney engineering centre and can accurately predict future events and internet content. It does this by using machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques from a system called MATE™ (Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation).
A few months ago I wrote about how using colored labels with filters can provide an entirely new way to visualize your inbox. I just started using a feature that further helps me quickly prioritize my email. When enabled, "personal level indicators" put arrows next to messages in your inbox so you can tell if an email was addressed to you, a group, or a mailing list that you're on. A single arrow ("›") is automatically placed next to emails sent to you and others, and double arrows ("»") next to emails that are sent just to you.
I personally get a ton of email from lists (mostly from my college days when I subscribed to student group lists after a campus activity fair), so it's helpful to see my inbox annotated with arrows that tell me which emails are likely to warrant replies. If I get a bunch of emails with no arrows at all, I know they are probably from mailing lists. Give it a try for yourself by switching the "Personal level indicators" option to "Show indicators" under Settings.
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Now that is an interesting question. The British think that the largest non-military IT project in the world involves the NHS - National Health Service. There is a long-term project to move completely away from paper-based records to electronic. Things like having your x-rays and scans delivered to your doctor before you can walk from the imaging room to the consultation room, or having your medication script automatically available to the pharmacy filling the prescription, and telling your bank to grab the £6 fee for meds before you have even reached for your Maestro card.
No doubt the Union of British Paper Pushers will start a go-slow when this project gets into test phases. Or perhaps they are already secretly practising their industrial action at Surgeries near you? I think they should integrate this project with the gazillions of video cameras around UK towns. Their face-recognition software could catch out the person who limps into the doctor claiming a work accident, because the doctor already has video of them skipping down the street yesterday, or walking quite happily home from the pub last night.
The Americans think they have the #1 project though, with some kind of RFID (that's tiny little electronic tags) all the way along their common border with Mexico, to stop illegals coming over and starting up even more Taco Bells. Whilst Californians might really have this love-hate relationship with the illegals (love the lifestyle the cheap labour brings, hate the idea of a Spanish speaking Governor so much that they chose Austrian instead) the top money in the US is probably some highly secret military application. Imagine the way Africa and Eastern Europe might develop with the kind of money that the West invests in new and exciting ways to kill each other more humanely.
My money is on neither - it is on Google's world domination plans. Rumours of a Google phone, Google operating system, Google online apps that dispense with the need for Microsoft ... abound these days. Yep, somewhere in Google's name or logo or the full names of their founders, I am sure we can 'discover' something, somehow, that sort of resembles 666.
This is a test of posting to the blog by creating a new document in Google Docs and then publishing direct to the blog from within Google Docs. There should be a picture of an elephant here too! I searched for the photo using Google's image search, and simply copied and pasted the photo into this post. So it does help avoid the usual having to save a photo to my desktop, and then using Blogger's upload tool to get the picture into the post. Only one criticism - I manage several blogs under my Blogger account, and the Google Docs posting option does not let me choose which blog gets posted to.
It works, and is very easy! Well done Google. Why an elephant? Our favourite animal - we both agree that nothing is finer than sitting on a Kariba houseboat watching the ellies. Not too many of them around here in West Sussex. (Picture credit: National Geographic)
