Google’s Project Fi

One of the most exciting information that was revealed on Wednesday has to be from Google. The confirmed announced their plan for launching their wireless service called Project Fi. The information highlighted that this service will be leveraging the obtainable Wi-Fi networks and only switch to another carrier’s network like Sprint on T-mobile in the absence of Wi-Fi accessibility.

Looking at the current approach towards the mobile communications, market experts have named the same as “Wi-Fi first”. Although this is an approach, which is being followed by many companies like FreedomPop, Republic and even scratch Wireless. Recently Freewheel was launched by the Cablevision Company with the sole aim of providing only the Wi-Fi service.

Impact on the Wireless Industry: 

This announcement from the web giant has comes as a boon for the wireless industry, for the Wi-Fi First industry and not to forge the customers who are associated with the company. As if now it has been reported that typically a customer has to pay around $10-20/GB for data usage however we all know that the conventional cell phone service cost around $140 per month for every subscriber and according to the study conducted by Validas in 2013, every smartphone user ends up wasting nearly $28 worth of unused data each month. Contrary to all charges we do not, want the cell phone service is not supposed to be costly.

Reports released by Cisco in 2014 indicated that the company saw nearly half of their total mobile data traffic indicating the usage of Wi-Fi. With the increasing, number of updated and options for Wi-Fi, the company can certainly expect the numbers to go up high to nearly 90 percent. With the 1GB of mobile data costing around $10 to the customers, most of them have shifted to Wi-Fi and thereby saving nearly $700 billion every year.

If the system will get implemented properly, so it’s clear that the Wi-Fi model will have a capability to fill all the gaps and regulate the cellular networks and also end up hurting the business of both Verizon and AT&T around the world.

Google has been able will help the customer saves, so that they can trillions of their money through the Wi-Fi First model. The new project of Google will be able to increase the adoption of this new model through few of the critical steps whereas; the first step is to ensure that all Android devices have built in Wi-Fi First intelligence at outset. This is to ensure that the phones rely on the Wi-Fi system and incase of unavailability switch to the cellular services.

The second step is to ensure constant Wi-Fi connectivity. Although it is available everywhere not every customer uses the same for taking the maximum advantage. Google is aiming to make the entire experience seamless and more towards mainstream. We know that Wi-Fi is a critical part of every industry and given the excellent track record of Google, the has potential of taking down both Verizon and AT&T.

Short Clicks Vs Long Clicks

Long Clicks – Short Clicks – Determines User’s Satisfaction

Various search engines and Google regulate search result rankings by looking at huge amounts of user data and scrutinise user activity within the results. The search engines examines large sets of user data observing a variety of things in determining user’s satisfaction with the search results which are the long clicks vs. short clicks.

Internal metric Google utilising to determine search success, is time to long click and to comprehend this metric,it is essential for search marketers to assess changes in the search landscape. Moreover it is also beneficial for optimization of policies.

Long clicks take place when users perform a search and clicks on a result, remaining on the site for a long period of time. In the ideal scenario, they do not tend to return to the search results to click on some other result or to reframe their search. They do not return back to the result set immediately in order to click on another option.

Long clicks, in general are alternative for satisfaction and success. A short click on the other hand takes place when a user tends to perform a search and clicks on a result and then returns to the search results quickly to click on another product. They are an indication of dissatisfaction and failure.

Search Engine Result Page - SERP

Short clicks is when a user performing a search gets back and forth between the search engine result page – SERP, for the search option and sites displayed within the result.

In this case, the user does not come back to the result page immediately to click on other search option or to change the search option. From the point of view of Google’s perception the outcome which ends with longer clicks successfully fulfils the search query.

Moreover, a search engine also determines the time taken between clicks as a means of satisfaction which would decrease the chances of providing results which do not deliver valuable content for a specific search query.

This data can be stored for each search query and compared to the normal short click behaviours by a SERP rank page. For instance, if Google finds that the first result for a search query tends to have a remarkable high bounce rate, this information is read as negative signal by the search engine’s algorithm.

Google – Measures Short Click – Leveraging Tracking Mechanisms

Subsequently, the search engine tends to reduce the page’s rank within the SERP in its future algorithm update. For the result to be highlighted, it would perhaps need a statistically above average short click rate.

Google tends to measure short click activity by leveraging the prevailing tracking mechanisms. The long clicks are important to Google since it provides a means to measure the satisfaction of the result established on downstream behaviour.

 Google is aware that the search algorithm is still not quite smart and could tend to make mistakes. This could often lead to wrong path by forceful search engine optimization.

Feedback mechanism is provided by long clicks, a kind of human quality assertion which could be lacking in the algorithm. The talk from Google could be a part of the algorithm, though what the future holds in store remains to be seen.

Xiaomi Mi 4i First Look

The Xiaomi Mi 4i is the latest smartphone that has been launched by Xiaomi in Delhi. This launch was carried out in the presence of founders Lei Jun and Bin Lin. The keynote master was played by Hugo Barra. Even though the price of the smartphone has taken everyone by surprise as being quoted at 12,999, a lot of details of the Mi 4i were already leaked out in the market much before its launch. These details included information about display, resolution, chipset, camera specs, and many more. Even though the smartphone does have many features similar to that of Mi 4, the phone comes with lots of improvements in terms of Android 5.0 Lollipop, light body and large battery and so on.

• Build and Design: 
The smartphone has a polycarbonate rear cover, which is completely non-removable as it wraps around the phone giving a completely cornered and smooth edges. This cover has a non grease coating giving it a fully soft touch matte finish. According the company the smart phone users will also be able to remove the stains that have been made with a permanent marker. Both the power or the standby button and the volume rocker have been made of steel and mounted on the right side of the phone. The left side of the phone has the dual Sim tray. The phone is about 130gm in weight and around 7.8mm in width. This makes the phone very comfortable to hold despite its 5-inch display. The company has used the One Glass Solution to enhance the slim factor.


• The Display:
The phone comes with a 441ppi pixel density with the feature of HD display however; the Sunlight viewing technology will help to balance the light in the sunlight.


• Storage and Connectivity:
The phone has 16GB of internal storage out of which a user is allowed to use 10.92GB. At present, the company has not provided an option of adding microSD.


• Chipset, OS and RAM:
The smartphone comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 SoC powered by an Octa core processor. Customers will get a quad core Cortex A53 that has been clocked in at 1.7GHz and 1.1GHz. The phone comes with Adreno 405 GPU paired with 2GB LPDDR3 RAM. The company promises that there will not be any lag observed during switching between different apps. The look is not very much different from the preceding phones. With the dual Sim facility, the phone can manage even 4G SIM cards in the slots.


• Battery:
According to the company, the phone has been powered with 3,120mAh battery, which is known as the highest capacity battery from the company to work in a 5-inch device. The company also claims that a single usage can go up to one and half day. The phones can get charged to 40 percent within an hour.


• Camera Quality:
The camera has been kept similar to that of Mi 4. It relies on 13MP Sony sensor and has a 5-element f/2.0. The front camera is about 5MP camera, making subtle changes to enhance the quality of the front camera.

Moore's Law: Beyond the First Law of Computing

Moore’s Law – Reflection of History of Computing Hardware

Moore’s Law is a reflection of the history of computing hardware and the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit that has increased tremendously every two years. This has been named after Gordon E. Moore, the co-founder of the Intel Corporation and Fairchild Semiconductor which in 1965 was defined doubling every year, the quantityof components for each integrated circuit.

It is not guaranteed that computer chips would keep growing smaller and more powerful though it would be getting near to capacity. The most powerful computing machine in the world could also be the most universal – the human brain which can perform computation on a scale which the most advanced super-computers would be unable to match.

The neurons tend to act on millisecond timescales, though slow when they are compared to the fastest processor and fail to activate. What enables the brain to function is parallel computing, the capability of solving problems at the same time with several different parts of the brain and the focus to imitate the brain’s potential to parallel compute is not only the promise of improvement in computing but also recovery from the imminent death of one of the laws in modern history.

Chips’ First Getaway – Apple Newton (1993) 

It is assessed that there are around 1.4 billion smartphones on the planet and though most of the prevalent devices have been designed in California or South Korea, the chips which power them are designed in Cambridge, England.

ARM, the company which is behind it all may not be compared to Intel but their chips are better than their U.S. rival, on energy efficiency as well as size that is crucial for smartphones. Supporting ARM chips is a simplified approach to computing, which was first considered at the University of Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley.

According to professor of computer engineering at the University of Manchester in England, Stephen Fuber, he states that `this is one case of U.S. academic research being taken up by a U.K. company very successfully’. In 1980, he had designed the ARM chip, at the present defunct ARM predecessor company, Acorn. The chips’ first getaway was in the Apple Newton in 1993 while the rest is said to be history. Fuber states that `then and now, the Apple brand was magic and opened doors’.

Inevitable Technological Progress

ARM, like all other companies has been dealing with the end of a trend which has provided more powerful computers every two years for almost half a century. The term Moore’s Law represents inevitable technological progress though it is a very explicit observation on computer chips. Gordon Moore, in his seminal 1965 paper, had predicted that the number of transistors on a chip would double every 18 months and the cost would fall off at the same rate.

While they are speculating on why transistor density has followed this exponential path, its effect is doubtful. According to professor of complexity economics at the University of Oxford, Doyne Farmer, he states that `it has been a windfall’. The laws of Physics tend to threaten to end that windfall.

 In other words, transistors have to be made from atoms and as the transistors shrink to pack it in a chip, one ultimately reaches a limit where there is shortage of atoms and before running out of atoms, the reliability of tiniest transistors tend to fall while the cost increases due to the increased complexity as well as the difficulty in producing them.

Google Changing its Influential Search Engine

Google is planning to change the way its influential search engine endorses websites on tablets and smartphones which is expected to control where most of the individuals shop, eat and obtain information. The formula to be revised is scheduled to be released soon and would be favouring websites which Google considers as `mobile friendly’.

Websites that do not tend to fit into the description would be demoted in Google’s search results on the tablets and smartphones and those qualifying for the same would be more likely to appear at the top of the rankings which will be a prized position enabling them to translate into more visitors and money.

Though Google’s latest formula would not be affecting searches on the laptop and desktop computers it would be having a large effect on how and where individuals spend their money, now that most of them have been relying on their smartphones while comparing products in stores and in locating restaurants. Hence, Google’s new rating system is being billed by some of the search experts as `mobile-geddon’.

According to CEO of websites building service Duda, ItaiSadan, comments that `some sites will be going to be in for a big surprise when they find a drastic change in the amount of people visiting them from mobile devices’.

A Substantial Change to Its Mobile Search Rankings

As per Matt McGee, editor-in-chief for Search Engine Land, this could be the most substantial change which Google Inc. has made to its mobile search rankings, a trade publication which follows every tweak that the company makes to its secured guarded algorithms. A little more information on why Google is doing it and what is happening –

• Websites need to be designed in order to load quickly on mobile devices to stay in Google’s good style. The content also needs to be accessible easily on scrolling up and down without the need to swipe left or right. It would also be helpful in making purchases or taking other functions on the website could be seen easily and touched on small screens.
• Websites, if designed only with PC users in mind, graphics would take long time to load on mobile devices where the columns of text would not accommodate on the small screen making the reading a bit uncomfortable. Google has been advising websites to cater to mobile devices for several years since it is where individuals are progressively navigating for information
• The strength of mobile searchers in the U.S. has increased by around five percent wherein inquiries on PCs have been decreasing as per research firm comScore Inc. It estimated that around 29 percent of most of U.S. search requests, about 18.5 billion, in the final three months of last year, were made on mobile devices. The bulk of searches was processed by Google with two thirds in the U.S. and more in many other countries

Websites to Comply with Google’s Mobile Standards

Google has revealed its plans almost two months back, to reduce complaints. It also created a detailed guide and a tool to test compliance along with the new standards. The company faced disturbance over the past changes in its search formula.

In 2011 and 2012, two of the bigger revisions done were focused on clearing out misleading websites. Though the attempt sounded reasonable, several websites complained that the company’s changes unfairly demoted them in the ranking and made their content difficult to locate. Though most of the major merchants as well as big companies have websites which tend to meet up with Google’s mobile standards, it is considered that the new formula is likely to hurt millions of small businesses which do not have the money or incentive to familiarise their sites for smartphones. McGee is of the opinion that `a lot of small sites do not really have reason to be mobile friendly till now and that it would not be easy for them for these changes’.

Search Formula – Variety of Factors 

The Search formula comprises of a variety of factors in determining the rankings of its results. One being the most important consideration is that whether a site contains the most relevant information pursued by the search viewer. New striking order in Google’s mobile search could demote some sites to the back pages of the search results inspite of their content being more relevant to a search request than the other sites which tend to be easier to access on smartphones.

White Andrews, Gartner analyst states that this could be a very unfortunate significance though justifiable since the viewer would not be inclined to view other sites which would take a long time to open or difficult to read on mobile devices.

He adds further that `availability is part of relevancy and a lot of people are not going to think something is relevant if they cannot get it to appear on their iPhone’. Neil Shah, research director for devices and ecosystems with Counterpoint, a technology market research firm comments that `in the end, Google is an advertising platform company and its success is based on the success of its digital marketing customers’.