google – Page 9 – DECISION STATS

Google Doodle for Diwali Greetings

Hey,

If you like Diwali the festival and want Google to create a doodle for it, just send an email to proposals@google.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali

Diwali or Deepavali^{[note 1]}, popularly known as the “festival of lights,” is a festival celebrated between mid-October and mid-November for different reasons. For Hindus, Diwali is one of the most important festivals of the year and is celebrated in families by performing traditional activities together in their homes. For Jains, Diwali marks the attainment of moksha or nirvana by Mahavira in 527 BC.^[1]^[2]

Diwali is an official holiday in India,^[3] Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, Malaysia, Singapore,^[4] andFiji.

The name “Diwali” is a contraction of “Dipawali” (Sanskrit: दीपावली Dīpāwalī), which translates into “row of lamps”.^[5] Diwali involves the lighting of small clay lamps (diyas or dīpas) in Sanskrit: दीप) filled with oil to signify the triumph of good over evil. During Diwali, all the celebrants wear new clothes and share sweets and snacks with family members and friends.

The festival starts with Dhanteras on which most Indian business communities begin their financial year. The second day of the festival, Naraka Chaturdasi, marks the vanquishing of the demon Naraka by Lord Krishna and his wife Satyabhama. Amavasya, the third day of Diwali, marks the worship of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth in her most benevolent mood, fulfilling the wishes of her devotees. Amavasya also tells the story of Lord Vishnu, who in his dwarf incarnation vanquished the Bali, and banished him to Patala. It is on the fourth day of Diwali, Kartika Shudda Padyami, that Bali went to patala and took the reins of his new kingdom in there. The fifth day is referred to as Yama Dvitiya (also called Bhai Dooj), and on this day sisters invite their brothers to their homes.

While the story behind Diwali and the manner of celebration varies from region to region (festive fireworks, worship, lights, sharing of sweets), the essence is the same – to rejoice in the Inner Light

from-

http://www.google.com/doodle4google/history.html

How can Google users/the public submit ideas for doodles?

The doodle team is open to user ideas; requests for doodles can be sent to proposals@google.com

Google Docs Presentations gets a makeover but..

Maybe they should get design tips from Snooki!

New game on Google Plus- Triple Town by Spry Fox

The latest game on Google Plus is Triple Town, by Spry Fox http://www.spryfox.com/, makers of Steambirds survival.

Spry Fox is made by two ex Microsofties Daniel Cook and Dave E. , and they already have hit games on their hands but true to their name, they use all platforms including Flash.

Triple Town has a slightly classic smoothed font/icon look for a build build game with cute animals. ~~Detailed~~ review as follows ~~soon~~!

The game is a play on Tic Tac To, and uses a combination of tricks to keep you hooked, from smoooth iconery,cute bears, ninja bears,coins that buy you goodies. Basically 3 consecutive grass make a bush, 3 consecutive Bush make a Tree, 3 trees make a house, 3 houses make a church, trap bears and they turn into gravestones and 3 gravestones turn into– you get the idea. Use bots to clear space, crystals to make wild cards, and store and retrieve things from storehouse. Ninja bear teleports!

Google Dart a new programming language for web applications

From Google a new language for structured web applications-

http://www.dartlang.org/docs/technical-overview/index.html ( a rather unstructured website, if I may add)

Dart is a new class-based programming language for creating structured web applications. Developed with the goals of simplicity, efficiency, and scalability, the Dart language combines powerful new language features with familiar language constructs into a clear, readable syntax.

a structured yet flexible programming language for the web.
Make Dart feel familiar and natural to programmers and thus easy to learn.
Ensure that all Dart language constructs allow high performance and fast application startup.
Make Dart appropriate for the full range of devices on the web—including phones, tablets, laptops, and servers.
Provide tools that make Dart run fast across all major modern browsers.

These design goals address the following problems currently facing web developers:

Small scripts often evolve into large web applications with no apparent structure—they’re hard to debug and difficult to maintain. In addition, these monolithic apps can’t be split up so that different teams can work on them independently. It’s difficult to be productive when a web application gets large.
Scripting languages are popular because their lightweight nature makes it easy to write code quickly. Generally, the contracts with other parts of an application are conveyed in comments rather than in the language structure itself. As a result, it’s difficult for someone other than the author to read and maintain a particular piece of code.
With existing languages, the developer is forced to make a choice between static and dynamic languages. Traditional static languages require heavyweight toolchains and a coding style that can feel inflexible and overly constrained.
Developers have not been able to create homogeneous systems that encompass both client and server, except for a few cases such as Node.js and Google Web Toolkit (GWT).
Different languages and formats entail context switches that are cumbersome and add complexity to the coding process.

Global Warfare on Google Plus

Global Warfare is one of the latest games on Google Plus. There are lots of similarities between this game and Evony at http://evony.com

Global Warfare is made by Kabam https://www.kabam.com/games/global-warfare which is making a total of 3 games for Google Plus (out of 18) and it has Google Ventures as a strategic investor as well (and a member on the board). Google is clearly wanting to bet on online gaming with its earlier strategic investment in Zynga as well. It also acquired http://www.labpixies.com/ (which makes the game Sudoko Puzzles and Flood It but it has more games in reserve as can be seen at https://market.android.com/search?q=labpixies, so clearly G+ is being selective on Games directory at https://plus.google.com/games/directory)

With these gaming companies and others like http://www.digitalchocolate.com/about/ and http://www.rovio.com/index.php?page=company and http://www.popcap.com/ – well they are all there on G+

is gaming the ace in hand in G+ plans for Facebook- time will tell.

Evony of course was a very good game, as it was also very similar (allegedly) to Civilization, and though its advertising campaign of semi clad characters draws flak, it got the worlds attention and recall. While Evony was situated in medieval world, Global Warfare is a modern warfare equivalent.

Features in Global Warfare-

Alliances,
multiple player online gaming,
social sharing and rewards,
in game purchases,
persistent world

Some drawbacks-

Slight clutter in gaming space (and lack of nice fonts!)
Lack of help forums (or easy availability)
Lack of in game search for searching or navigating alliances

Overall- a nice addition to the G+ family of games

Games on Google Plus get- Faster, Higher, Stronger

I am spending some time and some money on two games on Google Plus. One is Crime City at https://plus.google.com/games/865772480172 which I talk about in this post

http://www.decisionstats.com/google-plus-games-crime-city-or-fun-with-funzio-on-g/

and Global Warfare https://plus.google.com/games/216622099218 (which is similar to Evony of the bad ads fame, and I will write on that in another post)

But the total number of games at Google Plus is increasingly and quietly getting better. It seems there is a distinct preference for existing blockbuster games , from both Zynga and non Zynga sources Even though Google is an investor in Zynga, it clearly wants Google plus to avoid being so dependent on Zynga as Facebook clearly is. Continue reading “Games on Google Plus get- Faster, Higher, Stronger”