Retro Garlic: "Google Wallet" ...We Were Close

We espied news today that Google will be introducing their long-teased "Google Wallet", an application for cellphones;

While this will be the official launch, the product itself will likely still be quite limited. The only officially compatible phone is the Nexus S 4G, which is only available on Sprint in the U.S. Google has an NFC sticker product to bring tap-and-pay to other phones, but it’s not clear if that will be ready at launch or not. Hardware to enable the payments on the merchant end is also needed. And again, MasterCard has been the only official partner on the credit card side of things so far. Perhaps Google will have more to say on that tomorrow. But the above documentation still points to PayPass-enabled Citi MasterCards as the only way to use the service for now.


It also makes sense for Google to get Wallet out there now before their next flagship Android phone, the Nexus Prime, launches next month. It too will have NFC capabilities built in and will bring the Wallet functionality to the much larger Verizon customer base.

Oh boy!


Can't wait for those news reports to pile up about these "Google Wallets" being hacked ...


And, the Retro part;


Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - Google Drops Bombshell - Will Compete With U.S. Treasury ...Markets Close Early and Troops Activated; eBay Said To Be Dumping PayPal

A day after news leaked of the 'Google Wallet', a pay system said to rival eBay's PayPal, Google late yesterday afternoon dropped a bombshell when they announced they will begin a new monetary system for the United States and compete with the U.S. Treasury.


[snip]


In a memo provided to The Garlic, by a person close to Google who wishes to remain anonymous, or would otherwise be terminated, shows that Google's money units will be called "Googlets" For higher denominations, a hyphen and Roman Numeral is added.


Ten Dollars in Googlets will be known as 'Googlets-X', $20, as "Googlets-XX, and so on. For odd denominations, a combination of Roman Numerals and regular numbers will be employed, such as $7 as 'Googlet-V2 or $23 as 'Googlet-XX3. There will be no metal coins in the Googlet Monetary System.

Oh well, we were close ...


 




Bonus Retro Garlic Google


Garlic Exclusive! ...Google Launches Search for Famed Woman Aviator


Stymied By Publishers, Google To Digitize Bazooka Joe Comics ...If Impasse Prolonged, Google To Continue With Baseball Cards, Shopping Coupons


Breaking News! Giant Search Engine Downed By GOP and RNC Staffers  ...Google Crashes! Besieged With “I’m Feeling Lucky” Searches From White House, Congress   ...Amazon, D.C. Novelty Stores Hit With Run On Magic 8-Balls


Top Ten Cloves: Other Great Things You'll Get Using Google's New Retooled Search Engine


Top Ten Cloves: Ways Google Can Provide Better Day Care


Life Imitates Art ... Or, Did Burt Lancaster Invent Google Earth?

Top Ten Cloves: Possible Reasons Google Flu Tracker Didn't Pick Up Swine Flu

News Item: Google flu tracker had trouble with latest virus

10. Having to accommodate Michelle Bachmann likely stressed the calculations

9. Coordinates, and program, set to track only a very, very small, very particular section of Palo Alto

8. It was in Beta Mode, Invitation Only

7. Had to throw out thousands of searches, from South Bend, Indiana, wishing Swine Flu on President Obama

6. Got sidetracked, tracking Arlen Specter's defection to Democratic Party

5. Couldn't decide , like it's cool logo, on the color palette for "Swine Flu"

4. An unusually high number of "I'm Feeling Lucky" Swine Flu searches skewed results of program

3. Because of Swine Flu, Google shut down its' bus services, so workers couldn't get in to read results

2. Got confused when they started calling it the "H1N1 virus."

1. Wasted weeks trying to find Swine Flu on Google Earth

Top Ten Cloves: Ways Google Can Provide Better Day Care

News Item: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

10. Out with the "organic, natural" food and in with cheaper McDonald's Happy Meals!

9. Offset cost for parents by renting the Google Day Care kids out as focus groups

8. Make the kids generate revenue - put'em to work on the Google Phone

7. Send the kids out on the grounds of the Google Campus, collecting bugs, and then announce the new "Google Gas" (but only in Beta-Mode, fill-ups by Invite-Only)

6. Resolve Viacom dispute with own content - Start putting a daily "Best of Google Day Care Bloopers" up on YouTube

5. Hire Chuck Norris to run the program - Just his staring at it will make it perform better

4. Cut down on Waiting List and notify parents of acceptance by having them hit the "I'm Feeling Lucky" search bar

3. Weed out any of the toddlers who have been using Google Earth for "pool parties"

2. Sponsor multi-million-dollar contest - Google Day Care Preschoolers vs. John McCain, on using the Internet

1. Public Service - Have them do a group "Not Alex" commercial

Life Imitates Art ... Or, Did Burt Lancaster Invent Google Earth?

Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Kids are jumpin'
In other peoples' pools

A real irony would have been, back in the day, if the those bobby-socking teens raided George Gershwin's pool.

I espied this link this morning and did, sort of, a double-take, followed by a hearty laugh.

The Google Earth gatecrashers who take uninvited dips in home-owners' swimming pools

Would-be revellers are using satellite images on the internet to find houses with swimming pools - and then turning up uninvited for an impromptu dip.

The craze involves using the Google Earth programme, which provides high-quality aerial photos of Britain and other countries.

Once a target is chosen, the organisers use social networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo to arrange to meet, say police.

There's other accounts of it Here and Here.

Absolutely incredible!

And hysterical ...

Who woulda' thunk it?

"If you build it, they will use it ..."

And, to play this all the way out, extend this thought-process of looking up pools and then crashing them, you have to believe that every business involved with pools - from building them, to cleaning them, to catering pool parties, to those retro Chinese lanterns, to providing glo-in-the-dark floating devices, to those providing home security - are all locked in to Google Earth, and burning up the printer, shooting out customized sales letters.

Chimneysweepers, fire up those computers, and exercise whatever finger you're going to use to zoom in on the roofs.

And then, I broke out laughing all over again.

It's, kind of, a back-to-the-future, kind of thing ...

I immediately thought about the odd, little (based on a John Cheever short story) Burt Lancaster film, 'The Swimmer';

On a sunny late summer day in Connecticut, Ned Merrill (Lancaster), an apparently successful, appealing and popular middle-aged businessman, emerges from the woods wearing only a pair of swimming trunks and decides to "swim" home across the county, dropping in on friends' swimming pools ...

At first he receives a warm welcome ... However, as the day wears on and he encounters those who have been closer to him more recently, the welcomes turn increasingly sour ...

If someone wants to remake this film, the kids have already given them the storyline ...

Start those office pools (no pun intended) for when this storyline (using Google Earth to raid swimming pools) makes its' way as the plot for CSI, or some other crime-busting show, next season (of course, there's either a dead body or kidnapping involved) ...

I almost guarantee it ...

They either figure it out in the first 10-15-minutes, and then it's a harried chase, to the end of the show (if it's a Sweeps Month broadcast, they can stretch this into a two-parter) ...

Or, there's a Eureka! moment, at around the 45-minute mark, and they simply trace a few computers to catch their criminal.

Ohhhhh ... Can they use Google Earth to crash in on those office pools?

Clinton Campaign Causes Havoc, Sends Map Makers Scurrying For Updates

Satellites Scrambled, Causing Hours of Blank Screens On Google Earth; Rand McNally. Others Dig Through Antique Maps For Answers

News is just beginning to leak out, of the nearly catastrophic damage, and economic hardship, the Hillary Clinton campaign caused earlier this week.

In a conference call with reporters on Thursday, Mark Penn, Clinton Chief strategist, stated that "We believe the road to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue goes straight through Pennsylvania’’, and "if Obama can’t win there, he asked, how can he win the White House?"

Within minutes of this statement, Rand McNally saw their Thomas Bros. Map page on the website crash, with visitors searching for federal, state, and even unmarked county roads they could take to get to the White House from the State of Pennsylvania.

Rand McNally dug deep into their history, even calling some of their retired, elderly mapmakers, seeking out clues on where this road was located.

"This was pretty bad," said John L. 'Sully' Sullivan, editor of the newsletter "They Said It Here", which documents the roads, streets and avenues presidential candidates have given stump speeches on.

"The entire map making world was buzzing for hours", continued Sullivan. "We even put three people on to dig through our archives, to see if we missed something, if we could document some dusty trial that has been overlooked."

Even Google saw and an extraordinary rush on searches for this mysterious road, however, it didn't crash the system, as happened two-years ago, when an overload of Republicans, using the “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature, brought Google down.

But Google didn't escape trouble completely.

Google Earth went blank for nearly three-hours, as visitors sought to pull up the State of Pennsylvania, alternately zooming in-and-out, searching for the road that Penn referenced. Eventually, with the high number of visitors, all using the same features, at the same time, first caused slow load times, and eventually the screen went blank.

Google also took the precaution of moving their satellites around, performing their own search for this special road.

As of the time of this writing, no map company, Google, or individual, has discovered a road in Pennsylvania, that could be taken to directly reach 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington, D.C.

Senator Barack Obama's campaign reacted to the news of the havoc caused by the Clinton Campaign.

David Axelrod, Obama's Chief Strategist, questioned just how ready Hillary Clinton would be on Day One.

"More and more is coming out that Hillary Clinton is not prepared to answer that telephone at 3AM ... That she's overstated her experience ... Now, we're discovering that she, or her campaign, can't even give out simple directions ... That, perhaps, they don't know their geography ..."

"Trust me." Axelrod added, "Barack Obama knows the road to take to get to the White House, and he's well down that path right now."

"And you can call him, at 3AM, if you want to know."


Bonus Links

Sheldon Alberts: Somewhere, Karl Rove is smiling

Matthew Yglesias: In The General

USA Today: Clinton strategist says Obama 'can't win the general election'

Greg Sargent - Penn: Pennsylvania Will Show That Obama "Really Can't Win The General Election"

Greg Sargent: General Election Polls Show Hillary And Obama Roughly Even Against McCain In Pennsylvania

Anonymous Liberal: Some Thoughts

Top Ten Cloves: Things Not Anticipated About Grand Canyon Skywalk

News Item: Tribe Set to Open Grand Canyon Skywalk

10. Had to spend millions clearing loose stones from the area

9. Possible bad vibe, as horseshoe design was modeled after one of the late Barbero's shoes

8. Will have to increase security, to keep Bungee Jumpers off the Skywalk

7. Worried that research showed people won't pay $25 to stand on Skywalk, but, from the safety of their homes, using their computers, get same view via Google Earth

6. Perverts flocking to base of Grand Canyon, under the Skywalk, equipped with high-powered zoom lenses

5. Already budget problems - Didn't factor in how much Windex they would need to keep it clean

4. Microsoft serving injunction, preventing them from using the word "Vista" in describing views from Skywalk

3. Talks with Super Bowl Champion Indianapolis Colts, to promote Grand Canyon Skywalk by wearing glass helmets next season, not going well

2. Other Indian casinos taking heavy betting on when glass skywalk cracks or breaks

1. Not sure of the confluence of energy that will take place if Philip Glass and Ira Glass show up on same day to take tour

Links

Grand Canyon Skywalk


Already budget problems - Didn't factor in how much Windex they would need to keep it clean