Author: Serkadis

It’s strange how some of Google’s most innovative products always seem to be introduced on April 1.

Google introduced Google Nose beta today, which taps into Google’s Knowledge Graph to help users search for smells they encounter.

With Google Nose, Google says you can “go beyond type, talk, and touch for a new notation of sensation.” Google’s “Aromabase” contains over 15 million scentibytes.

Here’s what the Knowledge Graph results look like with Google Nose:

The technology utilizes Android’s ambient odor detection feature. Clicking “Smell” will transmit the smell for you.

As explained in the video, Google Nose is even capable of answering: What does a ghost smell like?

Google Nose would probably tie in well with that brain interface Matt Cutts was recently talking about.

This is not the first time Google has worked with the sense of smell. In 2008, on April 1, Google introduced Scratch and Sniff ebooks.

Try Google Nose here.

Fans of The Walking Dead might enjoy this particular April Fools’ gag from Google, introducing the “Levity Algorithm” for Google Apps.

The product manager in this video looks just a little familiar, right?

The algorithm is designed to make the work week go a “little bit smoother”.

“Created in partnership with legendary improv comedians from Chicago’s Second City Communications, the Levity Algorithm is carefully tuned to help you spice up even the most boring of work days,” says product manager Steve Daley (played by The Walking Dead’s Steven Yeun). “Send happier emails, hold more engaging meetings, write more mind-blowing presentations — and above all, turn those frowns upside down.”

More April Fools’ fun here.

BetaNews has learned that Facebook’s “new home on Android” is not a phone, as widely rumored, but — get this — a smartwatch. A source with knowledge of the social network’s April 4 event contacted me after reading colleague Mihaita Bamburic‘s Saturday post: “I’m a gadget lover who doesn’t love smartwatches“.

I simply couldn’t believe that, so I contacted a truly trusted source, who acknowledged — after lots of coaxing — that the watch tip is genuine. I still didn’t believe and contacted another source, who wasn’t immediately available because of Easter celebrations. Like Mihaita, I think smartwatches are a dumb idea. About an hour ago, he (or it she) confirmed the Android timepiece will be Facebook’s show-stopping announcement.

If you listen to the Internet rumor rabble, everyone from Apple to Google to Samsung is developing a smartwatch, but Facebook could have the distinction of getting to market first. My last source shared a few nuggets of information — he had been drinking (who does that to celebrate Easter). The watch is huge, but he wouldn’t say how much other than to ask: “Have you seen those big Russian watches? Like them but thicker”.

The Facebook watch uses voice dictation and response. For example, using a Bluetooth earpiece, you can command the timepiece to read back Wall posts, dictate comments or “Like” something by simply saying the word.

Sorry, Mr. Zuckerberg, but the design concept makes no sense. Simpler and sounder approach: Develop a way for consumers to easily use a Bluetooth earpiece to control Facebook on a smartphone and let a voice-response system read back while they walk or work, instead of lifting the wrist to see or hear.

Something else: People aren’t used to recharging their watches every few days. Unless Facebook provides solar charging, it’s hard to see how battery life wouldn’t be a problem, particularly when adding Bluetooth — and a cellular radio.

One of my sources gave a kind of “wink, wink” response regarding PC connectivity. She strongly insinuated that Facebook’s watch wouldn’t need to sync to a computer, which must mean over-the-air. That suggests 2G radio at least. The only other way I see is FM, which Microsoft used for its partners’ line of smartwatches in the last decade.

Facebook has completed final technical, but not cosmetic, designs. The company plans to give out prototypes to news media attending this week’s event and launch a preview program similar to Google’s CR-48 Chromebook back in December 2010. The search and information giant gave out 60,000 computers during a broad beta test before Acer and Samsung released the first commercial models about six months later.

None of my sources would say when Facebook’s smartwatch would be available to purchase, but one hinted long before the holidays. Assuming 6 months from public prototypes to commercial products, like Google and Chromebooks, that works out to September release, if not sooner.

I’m dubious about Facebook’s plans — or smartwatches from anyone. Microsoft brought a brilliantly-conceived smartwatch strategy to market in the mid-Noughties along with well-known watchmakers like Fossil, Suunto and Swatch — and still the project fissiled. Using FM radio to keep constant connection assured users could get news, weather and other info anytime and anywhere.

But recharging was the deal breaker. Then there was behavior. Look how many people no longer carry watches because they get time from phones they regularly check? This was true during the dumb phone era, when Microsoft and partners released high-tech timepieces. The company failed in this market long before mobiles — where “smart” makes more sense — offer as much information as they do today.

April Fools! If Facebook really releases a smartwatch, then the joke’s on me.

Data center automation company Univa, announced the release of Univa Grid Engine Version 8.1.4 with 46 new updates, and enhanced support for Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessors.

“Our latest Univa Grid Engine version 8.1.4 has been completely customer driven and is the largest update of the last 10 months,” said Fritz Ferstl, CTO Univa Corporation and father of Grid Engine. “We are leading the industry right now in converged infrastructures supporting Big Data and Big Compute, and our customers rely on Univa Grid Engine to manage mission-critical applications – so we make sure to always stay close to them in order to support their needs.”

The Univa Grid Engine is a distributed resource management software platform, which has added over 525 updates since Univa took over the management of Grid Engine. It supports commercial enterprises in the industries of Industrial Manufacturing, Oil and Gas, Energy, Life Sciences, Biology and Semiconductors for enterprise-grade, big data applications. Earlier this year the company announced product support for ARM-based servers.

New key feature updates include an improved load collection tool for Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors to ensure jobs run on the least loaded cores. It also features extended memory usage metrics for multi-threaded applications and scheduler performance enhancements.

Coprocessors like Intel’s Xeon Phi supplement the performance of the primary processor, and have become a common feature in the fastest supercomputers.  Phi is the new brand for products using Intel’s Many Integrated Core (MIC) architecture for highly parallel workloads.

Last week Univa CTO Fritz Ferstl was interviewed by InsideHPC.com for a Grid Engine State of the Union.

The Model S just got a little more expensive. Tesla just announced that the company will no longer offer the least expensive Model S electric sedan. Per a Tesla press release, since its launch, only 4% of buyers opted for the 40 kWh model with its paltry 160 mile range. Instead, buyers have spent the extra cash on the more capable and better performing models.

The entry-level Model S cost $52,400 after the US Government’s $7,500 tax credit. At that price the 40 kWh Model S provided Tesla with a relatively competitive price point, putting the Model S on par with a BMW 5 Series or Cadillac XTS. But Tesla’s sales numbers clearly show that buyers didn’t mind spending more cash to get more range and better motoring performance of the higher priced options.

Tesla will still deliver a 40 kWh model to those who previously reserved one — it will just be a 60 kWh spec electronically limited to only provide 40 kWh’s of range.

At first blush it seems like a raw deal, but it’s fair. With this model, Tesla is fulfilling its end of the bargain, plus, since the vehicle will be equipped with a more powerful battery pack, the car will be quicker and more responsive than the standard 40 kWh trim. In additional, it will come packing the goods to hook up to Tesla’s ever-expanding SuperCharger network — previously an optional upgrade.

In the future the additional 20 kWh can be unlocked for $10,000, which is the current price between the 40 kWh and 60 kWh.

This announcement came along with a side note of Model S sales numbers. Tesla indicated that Model S sales exceeded the target indicated in the mid-February shareholder letter, with sales currently at 4,750 units rather than 4,500. Apparently NYT vs Musk didn’t hurt the company after all.

Those hoping for an HTC One smartphone with 64 GB of internal storage may have their carrier options very limited in the U.S. A promotional YouTube video shows the higher storage capacity handset as an AT&T exclusive, although there haven’t been any official carrier announcements to confirm or deny. However, the video, found by Droid Life, is posted on AT&T’s official YouTube account, lending credibility to the information.

In most cases, this exclusivity on storage wouldn’t be a big deal, but the HTC One has no expandable memory slot. That means you’ll always be limited to the internal storage that comes with the handset; there’s no microSD card. Presumably then, all other U.S. carriers will get the 32 GB storage version of the HTC One.

I’ve been using a Galaxy Nexus with 16 GB of non-expandable storage for over a year without any issues as I lean heavily on the cloud. Even with my reliance on cloud storage, there are times when I can’t load a large app — typically a game — on the phone because there isn’t enough storage available.

Personally, I’m still not a fan of exclusives on handsets or specific configurations of them: I see no benefit to the consumer, just to the carrier with the exclusive. I’m guessing that some folks won’t be happy about this news as they’d prefer to have the option between a 32 GB and 64 GB HTC One on the network operator of choice.

And I don’t think this move will help HTC sell more phones, which is something the company desperately needs to do. Instead, it could lose some customers to a 64 GB version of Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 — or even a lower capacity GS4 since it has a memory expansion slot — due to this exclusive.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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Today, on April 1, Google announced Google Wallet Mobile ATM, a device that lets you get cash from your smartphone, ATM style.

This image pretty much says it all:

Google explains in a blog post:

The mobile ATM device easily attaches to most smartphones and dispenses money instantly and effortlessly– forever ending your search for the nearest bank or ATM. Just type in your personal pin code on your cell phone and access all your cash from the palm of your hand.

The Google Wallet Mobile ATM technology allows you to enter the amount of money you want to withdraw directly in your phone or use voice-activated dispenser.

Google notes that the product does some things that even traditional ATMs can’t do, such as dispensing rare two and fifty dollar bills, and even “more practical” one dollar bills.

One huge bonus of using Google Wallet Mobile ATM over a traditional ATM is that when your device is low on funds, a self-driving, armored, hybrid vehicle will be alerted and dispatched to your location.

Wow, Google is really making our lives easier these days. First Google Now, and now this.

Internap was the best performing data center stock in the first three months of 2013. Shares of the the Atlanta-based colocation provider soared 34.9 percent on the quarter, as strong earnings made it the standout performer in a decidedly mixed quarter for the data center sector.

Publicly-held companies on our Data Center Investor list were nearly evenly split, with six recording gains while five lost ground – an underwhelming performance in light of the strength in the broader market.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average had its best quarter in 15 years, gaining 11.25 percent, while the  S&P500 index rose 10.1 percent to end the quarter at record levels.

Only three companies beat the broader averages, including Internap (INAP), CoreSite Realty (COR) and CyrusOne (CONE), which received strong investor interest after its IPO on Jan. 18.

Here’s a look at the first quarter performance chart for our Data Center Investor list of stocks.

Shares of Internap surged after the company recorded a strong quarter, “indicating it is striking the right chords with its diverse portfolio of colocation, managed services and cloud,” as DCK’s Jason Verge noted in a recent profile. In recent years the company has focused on its colocation business, expanding its margins by concentrating on company-operated colo space.

At the other end of the spectrum is managed hosting and cloud computing specialist Rackspace Hosting. Shares of Rackspace (RAX) fell sharply after the company’s earnings report raised concerns that the rate of adoption for cloud computing services may be moderating. The slide reflects Wall Street’s high expectations for Rackspace, which saw its shares rise 72 percent in 2012 amid investor enthusiasm for cloud computing.

Gmail Blue is just what it sounds like. It’s Gmail, and it’s blue.

“Gmail launched nine years ago on April 1st, 2004,” says project manager Jonathan Zames. “Since then you’ve been able to use hundreds of new features that push the boundaries of what email can do and make it easier to get things done.”

“Starting today, you’ll get to experience the next big step for Gmail, Gmail Blue,” he adds.

You can see just how revolutionary this is by watching the video:

This is the latest example of “moonshot thinking” at Google, according to lead engineer Carl Branch.

It’s taken six years to develop the technology behind Gmail Blue, according to lead designer Dana Popliger.

“In trying to bring email into the 21st century, we are faced with a challenge: how do we completely redesign and recreate something while keeping it exactly the same?” explains project manager Richard Pargo.

Welcome to the future of email.

Who knew that all this time YouTube has just been one giant contest to showcase the best video on the Internet?

For April Fools’, YouTube announced that contest submissions will be selected at midnight (Eastern), and all YouTube videos will be deleted, except for the winner, which will be prominently featured.

“When we started out in 2005, we focused on rapidly increasing user engagement. We wanted an inventive way to draw people in and catalyze their creativity. The result? A contest for the best video on our site,” says competition director Tim Liston. “Nearly eight years later, with 72 hours of video being uploaded every minute, we finally have enough content to close the competition. We’ve started the process to select a winner and as of tomorrow at midnight, we will be closing the site to submissions.”

Watch this video (which features some familiar faces, and you’ll get a sense of what YouTube has really been all about.

This is only one of many of Google’s April Fools’ jokes this year. The tech giant has become known for putting out a slew of new “products” on April 1st each year. Last year’s YouTube contribution was the ability to order all of YouTube on DVD, Betamax, or Laser Disc.

Electric car maker Tesla Motors announced on Sunday night that it has decided to cancel production of the base version of its Model S electric car that has the smallest battery pack, at 40 kWh (or 160 mile range). Tesla says only 4 percent of customers had ordered that version.

Tesla will continue to sell the Model S with 60 kWh (230 miles) and 85 kWh (300 miles) battery packs. Customers that already purchased the base Model S will get a 60 kWh version, but with software that will maintain the battery level to its 160 miles range.

The decision means that Tesla’s least expensive Model S will start at $62,400, instead of in the $50,000 range. Perhaps the move could also help boost Tesla’s margins on the Model S, which was around 8 percent at the end of 2012, and which Tesla is hoping will be closer to 25 percent later this year.

Clearly Tesla’s early customers, at this stage, care more about having a larger range for the car than shaving off $10,000 from the car. Perhaps that could change for Tesla’s third electric car, which is supposed to be a more low cost mainstream car.

At the same time that it streamlined its product line up, Tesla also announced that it has boosted its earnings guidance for the first quarter of 2013, due to 250 more Model S cars being delivered than expected. While Tesla had already reported that it expected to reach profitability on a non-GAAP basis (excluding non-cash options and warrant-related expenses) for the first quarter of 2013, Tesla now says that it expects to be profitable on a GAAP basis, too.

The fourth quarter of 2012 was a breakthrough time for Tesla. The company moved into volume production, and started producing 400 Model S cars per week. Now Tesla just needs to continue to produce Model S cars at that volume and push up its margin to meet 25 percent so that it can morph into a profitable company on a recurring basis.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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Donald Trump is in negotiations with Fox and NBC to bring a new reality show to television, featuring corporate CEOs swapping roles. The concept is in advanced planning stages, with a mock-up pilot already shot and the two networks vying to add the series to their 2013-14 season. Normally, we don’t bother with entertainment news at BetaNews, but two of the confirmed chief executives will interest our readership — Apple’s Tim Cook and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft.

Trump and NBC already have a working relationship on a number of projects from the original “The Apprentice” and its spin-offs. But Fox fiercely is negotiating rights, which aren’t bound by Trump’s existing contractual commitments with the Peacock network. News of the deal leaked Sunday night in an email accidentally — or accidentally on purpose — sent to several trade publications, including Variety. Leaks like this are often deliberate and designed to foil negotiations or to increase pressure on one of the parties.

The Ballmer and Cook connection is a fascinating subplot. While nowhere as reclusive as Steve Jobs, his successor has given only a few, select public interviews. So Cook’s participation is at first surprising. But according to one of the documents attached to the leaked email, Trump put forth what I’ll call a crazy plan to boost ratings: Bring back Jobs from the dead, using a spiritualist to channel him from the afterlife. Cook agreed to participate on the condition Trump abandons the Jobs-psychic thing and threatened to pull Apple advertising from any network airing the channeling segment.

But it’s that aspect which has Fox executives chomping for the reality show. Apparently, the network is so intrigued by the spiritualist thing that executives approached Trump about doing a dead celebrity channeling series. Ha! I can’t resist, please forgive me. The concept brings whole new meaning to channel surfing.

But that’s a digression, while fascinating enough. The original concept is different. CEOs swap jobs for X time period. Producers want a week but only believe chief executives and their boards of directors will agree to 24 hours, according to one of two proposals attached to the leaked email.

There are other problems, such as disclosure of trade secrets. How can one CEO realistically step into another’s role without learning something confidential about the other company? That goes for people filming the reality show, too. However, based on the proposals, Trump’s interest is the shock value of, say, Ballmer’s reaction to day-to-day operations at Apple and vice versa for Cook. The idea is to immerse the CEOs in their rival’s corporate culture, without participating in meetings or going places that would jeopardize proprietary information.

In typical Trump “You’re Fired!” fashion, shock is the goal. The concept greatly appeals to Fox, according to the leaked email. But privately, in one series of attached memos, producers raised concerns that the reality show would embarrass chief executives and damage their reputations. For this reason, the Trump organization proposes shooting a complete set of 13 episodes before airing any of them — to prevent CEOs from dropping out of future filming after seeing the first segments. If either network accepts the proposal, the series, which is yet unnamed, wouldn’t air until January 2014.

Trump or his producers have approached other CEOs about participating, some of which seem almost desperate for the publicity. Arianna Huffington, Marissa Mayer and Mark Zuckerberg are among some of the other chief executives on the shortlist. Each episode would focus on just two of them swapping jobs. A second proposal has execs from totally different businesses making the switch.

April Fools!

Photo Credit: Zaptik/Shutterstock