It wasn’t enough for the search engine giant to perfect real time search (making Twitter’s tweet stream useful for the first time) as it looks like the boys and girls at Google have once again redefined search while at the same time burying their competition.
Our search-as-you-type demos were thought-provoking—fun, fast and interactive—but fundamentally flawed. Why? Because you don’t really want search-as-you-type (no one wants search results for [bike h] in the process of searching for [bike helmets]). You really want search-before-you-type—that is, you want results for the most likely search given what you have already typed.
As you can imagine, searching even before someone types isn’t easy—which is why we are so excited today to be unveiling Google Instant. Google Instant is search-before-you-type. Instant takes what you have typed already, predicts the most likely completion and streams results in real-time for those predictions—yielding a smarter and faster search that is interactive, predictive and powerful. (Official Google Blog)
Despite the fact that Google already rules the search universe, it looks like the Mountain View giant’s latest innovation makes Bing! almost irrelevant, despite the latter’s assimilation of Yahoo! earlier.
If Google is able to successfully port this feature over to the mobile-verse, Bing! could be even further marginalized by Google who right now dominates the mobile map market as well as commands over 98% of the mobile search market.
Unless Microsoft has a secret weapon of some kind (perhaps the upcoming Windows 7 Phone?), Bing!’s attempts at dethroning Google just went from difficult to near impossible.
After causing controversy throughout the world for exposing classified information, it looks like Swedish police have begun raiding buildings in search of servers hosting Wikileaks as well as The Pirate Bay.
The Swedish police had raided the premises of the host PRQ of Sweden in Solna in Sweden. This “host activist, who advocates a radical conception of freedom of expression, including the servers hosting the download site The Pirate Bay or sites advocating pedophilia. It is also the host of Wikileaks, the site specializes in the publication of confidential documents made public this summer tens of thousands of reports of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. (Le Monde.fr Technologies)
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was previously accused of rape by Swedish officials earlier, although the charges later on were dropped do to lack of evidence.
Although the current raid thus far appears to be part of an on going investigation that (according to the article) started years ago, the Swedish’s government is probably being pressured to take a harder stance against Wikileaks by its allies (especially those in the intelligentsia).
The site thus far still seems to be fully operational (as Wikileaks probably has numerous servers located all over the world), although it probably will not be surprising to see more raids conducted against Wikileaks who seems to have earned the scorn of international governments everywhere.
After introducing the Gmail masses to Google Voice, it looks like the search engine giant now will send you an email anytime you miss a call.
Google Voice lets you take charge of your telephony experience, giving you one number that rings all your phones. But what if you’re not around to answer any of them?
Starting today, whenever you miss a call, you can see a notification in your Google Voice inbox, or receive an email notification, or both. (Google Voice Blog)
Users can log into Google Voice in order to adjust their settings, although they may want to make sure incoming Google Voice emails are marked as “important” (for those of you who have embraced Gmail’s priority inbox).
While Android users will probably have no need for this, iPhone lovers will probably appreciate this feature due to the fact that El Jobso has banned Google Voice from the app store.
Although this feature does not in any way help convince Skype lovers to ditch the VoIP king for Google (as Skype already emails me whenever I receive a voicemail), it should help Google remain somewhat relevant for users of the service.
After knocking out Viacom in the US over copyrighted videos submitted by users, it looks as if the German courts did not rule in YouTube’s favor.
Google Inc.’s YouTube video service lost a Hamburg court ruling over copyrighted video material that was posted online without permission for rebroadcast.
YouTube may be liable for damages involving material shown in violation of copyright law, the Hamburg Regional Court said today in an e-mailed statement. (SFGate.com)
Even though Google has a fairly strong content ID service, it seems as if a few videos sneaked through its defenses (thus the reason for the lawsuit).
Google is already appealing the ruling, which has the potential of handicapping not only YouTube, but every other hosting service in the country (as manually pre-screening every user submitted content could stall the growth of many German tech companies).
Hopefully the higher courts will be able to see YouTube’s reasoning (or rather the reasoning behind America’s Digital Millenium Copyright Act) lest Germans lose out on one of the largest video sites on the web.
On the heels of Google unleashing Google Voice to the Gmail masses, it looks like Skype is ready to up the ante by announcing that it will be experimenting with a new video chat feature that will please Skypepoholics everywhere.
Today we’ve released an update to Skype for Windows. The second beta of Skype 5.0 brings a number of changes both outside and in – most importantly, you can now make group video calls with up to 10 people. It also welcomes in a fresh new look, as well as increased stability and better quality when making group video calls. (Skype Business Blog)
Note: Emphasis mine.
Although one can make a video call via Google Chat (which will probably be incorporated within Google Voice in the future), you can currently only chat with one person at a time.
While Skype’s group video chat feature isn’t free (there is a trial period before you have to pay), this feature will probably appeal to businesses and families who have employees or relatives spread all over the globe, respectively.
While group video chats will not appeal to everyone, it should help the nimble company maintain its lead against the Google Goliath (the latter who seems intent on declaring war against everyone).
If their was one “social network” I hated most it would have to be email.
Despite the advances of Gmail over the years, more often than not I would be flooded with messages (between 100-200 daily) that while were not spam, were nonetheless annoying.
Fortunately it looks as if our Google overlords were just as frustrated as we were, and have launched a new beta feature called Priority Inbox which should make life easier for those on the go.
Gmail has always been pretty good at filtering junk mail into the “spam” folder. But today, in addition to spam, people get a lot of mail that isn’t outright junk but isn’t very important—bologna, or “bacn.” So we’ve evolved Gmail’s filter to address this problem and extended it to not only classify outright spam, but also to help users separate this “bologna” from the important stuff. In a way, Priority Inbox is like your personal assistant, helping you focus on the messages that matter without requiring you to set up complex rules. (Official Gmail Blog)
While there are a few kinks to work out with the system (as it sometimes marks emails I loathe as “priority”), this one feature alone has brought me back to my inbox instead of relying on Facebook for the important messages.
Although this one feature will probably make Gmail the preferred email service for GTDer (or Get Things Done), I wouldn’t be surprised if Google’s rivals mimic this upon their respective email platforms.
After making its debut upon the iPhone, it looks like Bing! is expanding its mobile presence by (finally) embracing Android.
However it looks as if Bing! embrace of Android is half hearted.
Today we are happy to announce the first official Bing for Mobile Android App available to Verizon customers. You can now download the free Bing App from your Verizon Wireless Android phones’ Marketplace.
The app homepage features the Bing image of the day, complete with clickable hotspots that you can explore and discover related trivia (Bing Community Blog)
Note: Emphasis mine.
While Bing!’s embrace of Android should help Microsoft steal some mobile momentum away from Google, truth be told launching the app only upon one carrier is baffling.
Although Bing! is still available for Americans only, Android has (more or less) been embraced by all US carriers, even AT&T (who also carriers the iPhone).
While we will probably see Bing! eventually be ported to other carriers (thanks in part to the numerous hackers available), Microsoft may want to rethink its approach at handicapping its own mobile search engine, especially if they want to dethrone Google as the king of mobile search.
In an effort to remove the chorus of a thousand voices saying the same thing, the Google News team is now allowing users to view news services from the original source, a move that will probably appeal to many news organizations.
Enter “duplicate detection.” Duplicate detection means we’ll be able to display a better variety of sources with less duplication. Instead of 20 “different” articles (which actually used the exact same content), we’ll show the definitive original copy and give credit to the original journalist. (We launched a similar feature in Sort-by-Date and got great feedback about it.) Of course, if you want to see all the duplicates on other publisher websites with additional analysis and context, they’re only a click away.
By removing duplicate articles from our results, we’ll be able to surface even more stories and viewpoints from journalists and publishers from around the world. This change will provide more room on Google News for publishers’ most highly valued content: original content. (Google News Blog)
By highlighting original news sources, blogs and media outlets that break the news will be able to receive the lions share of internet traffic from Google News instead of rival (which could have a greater page rank).
Although this change will probably result in a greater de-emphasis of blogs being highlighted on Google News (to the joy of a few media outlets), it should help Google compete against larger rivals in the future (like Yahoo News).
If there was one feature I wish Twitter would improve, it would be its live search feature (aka real time search). While the service works really well in tracking live discussions, its relevancy fades the further back in time one searches.
Fortunately it looks as if the boys and girls at Google are once again resolving this issue by relaunching their live search feature under a new location.
What makes this service truly remarkable is the ability to track events in the past, as well as receive email alerts regarding virtually every topic under the Sun (a tool that might be useful for businesses and marketers).
Unfortunately Google has yet to implement live search upon the iPhone, something their rival Bing! has done (albeit only for US users).
While live search is a feature that will probably not interest too many people outside of the geekosphere (as many people are fine with static news), it could give Google leverage over Facebook (the latter who could potentially launch a social search engine of their own in the not so distant future).
In their quest to challenge Skype for the VoIP crown, the search engine giant is rolling out Google Voice to Gmail lovers (provided they live within a few countries).
Starting today, you can call any phone right from Gmail.
Calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for at least the rest of the year and calls to other countries will be billed at our very low rates. We worked hard to make these rates really cheap (seecomparison table) with calls to the U.K., France, Germany, China, Japan—and many more countries—for as little as $0.02 per minute.
Dialing a phone number works just like a normal phone. Just click “Call phone” at the top of your chat list and dial a number or enter a contact’s name. (Official Gmail Blog)
If you do not see the feature yet in your account, you can either wait 72 hours or activate it early by calling a number within your Gmail account (your results may vary).
Thus far, Google seems to be aiming at reducing Skype’s dominance in the world of VoIP by using its deep pockets to draw away Skypers (who have mocked Google’s attempts in the past).
Unfortunately for Google Voice, Skype current advantage lies with its video calling feature, not to mention the fact that the latter is available upon the iPhone thanks to iRage from Steve Jobs.
