Warning!
DO NOT TYPE "GLOBAL THERMO-NUCLEAR WAR"!
Google 'Solitaire' ... Just do it
Google has announced that if you type “Solitaire” into its search engine or search app, you'll now have the chance to play an in-browser time-waster it's cooked up. Type “tic-tac-toe” and you'll have a chance to beat Google at its own game, and you can't say that too often! ®
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Friday 26th August 2016 08:25 GMT choleric
Re: Not fair
To be fair, the biggest time waster is probably surfing the internet, and Google has had that down for a few years now. I bet they have data showing that including solitaire bloatware actually increases worker productivity.
In other news Google moves to Redmond and releases Search 95.
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Friday 26th August 2016 08:18 GMT Charles 9
Re: TTT.
Nope, it can win or draw going second, too. There are only three basic opening moves available: corner, side, center. Optimal responses can be made for all three. For example, between corner and center, if your opponent starts with one, you take the other to start a pretty basic move set to assure a draw.
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Friday 26th August 2016 14:39 GMT nil0
Not sure what to think about this
First thought was: cool, that's a nice bit of fun.
Second thoughts are a bit darker. If I were a website offering a solitaire game, I'd be pissed off. Google already has form in intercepting traffic before it gets to websites - quite often, you type a query and Google pops up a box ahead of the search results with the information you're after. Great for the user, but the user then doesn't visit the website.
Instead of directing traffic at relevant websites, Google is increasingly using information scraped from those websites to ensure the user doesn't go beyond Google; it's turning from being a positive source of traffic to a parasite using a website's own content to actually prevent traffic.
So Solitaire, fun, but slightly worrying...
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Friday 26th August 2016 19:57 GMT Ashley_Pomeroy
Re: Not sure what to think about this
The flip side is that the Solitaire website's entire raison d'etre was probably Google ad revenues - from Google's point of view it has no obligation to provide anyone with traffic.
On the other hand imagine a future where you Google "DOSBox", and you get back a fully-functioning DOSBox in your browser, or MAME with perhaps a handful of public domain games; or an in-browser GIMP. That kind of thing would be handy for Google's Chromebooks but would be decidedly underhand.
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Saturday 27th August 2016 02:23 GMT Yes Me
Re: Seems...
It's not the first solitaire game to do that. But it seems (at least on Windoze) to use the same lousy random number generator as always, with almost predictable card runs if you're an addict.
But yes, as others have said, it's clearly a gimmick to keep you in the Google cookie jar as long as possible.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
