14 DAY TRIAL // Google Wave is still under wraps with only select developers getting to see and use it. And we're still a few months away from any sort of release for the public. But to keep our appetites satisfied Wave's developers decided to show us what some of the devs with access to the technology have been creating.
The Wave apps they've showcased were actually developed shortly after the Google I/O conference in San Francisco and were created on the spot at a gathering at the Google Headquarters. Some apps were rather simple but some were actually quite interesting and useful. For example, Andres Ferrate created a robot – more on the difference between a gadget or a robot later – for Google Wave that searched Amazon.com for DVDs and books and offered links to the products earning a part of the purchase price in the process. Another app, created by Evan Cooke, called a phone number from a Wave then, using the Twillio API, transcribed the conversation and pasted it back in the Wave.
Other developers catered to music fans with two gadgets called “Dum Drumz,” created by Dave Peck, and “Piano,” by Yasushi Ando. Since then the two banded together to create a “collaborative Wave band.” There were a lot more demos, 17 in total, and some are listed on the Google Wave Developers blog; however, to see them in action you will have to have a Wave Sandbox account, which few of us mere mortals do.
Wave apps can be grouped into two big categories: gadgets and robots. A gadget is an application that runs inside a Wave similar to Facebook apps or iGoogle gadgets. This can perform a wide variety of tasks, from simple games to weather widgets. A robot however has a very different role. It acts like another participant to the Wave and can interact with the other users in the Wave. It can also get information from outside sources or perform other automated tasks.