Google search getting eyes and ears

Google search getting eyes and ears
Google on Monday unveiled "Goggles" software that lets people search online using pictures taken with cameras in mobile phones based on its Android operating system. "When you take a mobile phone camera and connect it to the Internet, it becomes an eye," Google mobile search vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra said while demonstrating Goggles in Mountain View, California.

"Google Goggles lets you take a picture of an item and use the picture as the query." An experimental version of Goggles will be available for people at Google Labs website. Goggles already recognizes books, wine labels, CD covers, landmarks and more, according to Gundotra. He demonstrated by taking a picture of a wine bottle label with a smart phone and almost instantly getting reviews, pictures and other Internet data about the vintage in a Google search results Web page.

"It is our goal to visually identify any image," Gundotra said. "It is in Google Labs because of the nascent nature of computer vision. In the future, you will be able to point (a camera phone) and we will be able to treat it as a mouse pointer for the real world." Google on Monday also added Japanese to a voice-based search service first rolled out about a year ago.

People can now speak Google search subjects into smart phones in English, Mandarin, or Japanese. "In addition to voice search, Google has huge investments in translation," Gundotra said. "Our goal at Google is nothing less than being able to search in all major languages of the world." The California Internet colossus is aiming to deliver a translation service to mobile telephones some time in 2010, according to Gundotra.

People will be able to speak into a mobile telephone to have sentences translated into other languages and delivered back quickly in text and audio forms, Gundotra said while demonstrating an early version of the service. He also showed a "near me now" feature that uses global positioning capabilities in Android-based smart phones to customize map results to show shops, attractions, restaurants or other offerings that are in easy reach. "In the future, there will be many different ways of searching," said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience. "We really foresee a world where you can search and find your answer where ever it exists and whatever language it is in."

Check the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhgfz0zPmH4&feature=player_embedded

Tweeting by Thinking

Tweeting by Thinking
Plenty of people's Twitter feeds appear to be connected directly to their egos, but one scientist's is actually wired to his brain. In April, University of Wisconsin doctoral student Adam Wilson — working with adviser Justin Williams, above — tweeted 23 characters just by thinking. He focused his attention on one flashing letter after another on a computer screen while wearing a cap outfitted with electrodes that monitored changes in his brain activity to figure out which character he wanted. His efforts spelled out "USING EEG TO SEND TWEET," among other messages. The feat marks a major step forward in establishing communication for people with "locked in" syndrome, which paralyzes the body, except for the eyes, but leaves the mind alert. For now, though, it's slow going: with the speediest brain tweeters reportedly managing just eight characters a minute, it's a good thing they're limited to 140.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1934027_1934003_1933954,00.html#ixzz0XkatSCSx

Buy your customized newspaper

Billed as Europe's first "personalised paper", "niiu", a newspaper tailored to readers' individual wishes and delivered to their door before 08:00 am, made its first appearance in Berlin on Monday.
Customers of the paper choose what topics they want to read about -- be it sport, politics, fashion or any from a wide choice -- and receive news only on their chosen subject collated together and delivered like any other paper.

Articles are pulled together from major German papers such as Handelsblatt, Bild and Tagesspiegel, foreign titles such as the International Herald Tribune or the New York Times, as well as major blogs and Internet news sources.

For the right to print their news, "niiu" pays a licence to these papers, which in turn reach a younger audience, as "niiu" is aimed mainly at students, who pay 1.20 euros (1.79 dollars) to get their news fix. Non students are expected to stump up 1.80 euros.

The two German entrepreneurs who came up with the idea were delighted with their first day in business, having launched the concept in mid-October. More than 1,000 people have already signed up on the Internet to receive the "niiu", said Wanja Oberhof, 23, one of the founders. "That has exceeded all our expectations," he told AFP. "It's not just students, the interest is much wider," he added. The pair hopes to be printing 5,000 copies in the next six months, first in Berlin before rolling it out nationwide.

At a time when newspapers globally are struggling with competition from Internet news sources, the founders acknowledge that "niiu" is a risky venture. However, they said that young people were tired of trawling the web for news and would pay for the tailored service their paper offers. Eventually, clients will be able to choose the length of the paper delivered -- for example, eight pages on a busy Monday morning but 60 pages on a Friday when there might be more time to read. Initially, however, the paper consists of 16 pages.

Read more at: http://forum4editors.com/2009/10/a-brand-niuu-day-for-the-printed-newspapers-is-coming/
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4899459,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf

Touch-free Computing

Touch-free Computing: Microsoft's new user interface uses hand gestures in the air and tracks eye movement.
Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie is doing the rounds at a number of prestigious colleges in the States showing off Microsoft’s vision for technology to solve the world’s biggest problems. Of course, one must use the latest in natural user interfaces for this task.
A feature of this year’s tour appears to be a next-generation computer – one that docks and undocks from a transparent glass display and allows for not only pen and voice input as you’d come to expect from natural user interfaces, but also incorporates touchless gestures and eye-tracking to interact with the information at hand.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid3924348001?bctid=48751387001

Now your domain name can be in Hindi- not English

The Internet is set to undergo one of the biggest changes in its four-decade history with the approval of international domain names - or addresses - that can be written in languages other than English. The non-profit body that oversees Internet addresses approved Friday the use of Hebrew, Hindi, Korean and other scripts not based on Latin characters in a decision that could make the Web dramatically more inclusive.

The board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - or ICANN - voted to allow such scripts in so-called domain names at the conclusion of a weeklong meeting in Seoul, South Korea's capital. The decision by the board's 15 voting members was unopposed and welcomed by applause and a standing ovation. It followed years of debate and testing.
"This represents one small step for ICANN, but one big step for half of mankind who use non-Latin scripts, such as those in Korea, China and the Arabic speaking world as well as across Asia, Africa, and the rest of the world," Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's CEO, said ahead of the vote.

Domain names - the Internet addresses that end in ".com" and other suffixes - are the key monikers behind every Web site, e-mail address and Twitter post.

Since their creation in the 1980s, domain names have been limited to the 26 characters in the Latin alphabet used in English - A-Z - as well as 10 numerals and the hyphen. Technical tricks have been used to allow portions of the Internet address to use other scripts, but until now, the suffix had to use those 37 characters.

That has meant Internet users with little or no knowledge of English might still have to type in Latin characters to access Web pages in Chinese or Arabic. Although search engines can sometimes help users reach those sites, companies still need to include Latin characters on billboards and other advertisements.

Now, ICANN is allowing those same technical tricks to apply to the suffix as well, allowing the Internet to be truly multilingual.

Read more at: http://www.physorg.com/news176099055.html
Now your domain name can be in Hindi- not English

Easier To Browse Web Sites On Mobile Devices

IBM Makes It Easier To Browse Web Sites On Mobile Devices
The Web has turned consumers into do-it-yourself travel agents, data entry clerks and librarians. With the rise of blogs and social media, they have also been turned into syndicated columnists. As such, many have also been forced to become amateur Webmasters, faced with the challenge of cramming content into a format readable on mobile devices, including cellphones -- an increasingly common way to access the Internet.
To help Webmasters of all skill levels, IBM researchers in Tokyo have developed a visual editor technology that enables Webmasters to arrange their Web site content reading flow in a logically-ordered sequence -- without changing the existing content -- that can be easily read on the small screens of mobile devices. The editing tool can also improve the browsing experience for visually impaired Web surfers who use voice browsers to read Web content. The visual editor uses smoothly connecting arrows to show in what order voice browsers would present content. To edit the reading flow, Webmasters need only drag, drop and re-arrange the arrows. This is an improvement over more cumbersome methods, such as using voice browsers to check reading flow line by line, and requiring Webmasters to copy and paste large amounts of content to a memopad to check reading flow.

In addition to Web pages, the tool can be applied to electronic presentations, PDF documents and Flash content to improve their contextual reading flow.

Global mobile subscriptions are expected to reach 4.6 billion by the end of the year, according to the International Telecommunication Union. IBM Research is making a five-year, US $100 million investment to advance mobile services and capabilities for businesses and consumers worldwide. Through this effort, IBM is aiming to drive new intelligence into the underpinnings of the mobile Web to create new efficiencies in business operations and people's daily lives.
More information: For more information about IBM's mobile Web initiative, please visit http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/presskit/24254.wss
Check the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBCcSMcZ3A0&feature=player_embedded

FON

You pay for internet access at home, so why must you pay for it again at the coffee shop, the airport and the hotel? That frustration spawned Spanish Wi-Fi startup Fon. It's a simple idea: Give and you shall receive. "Foneros" first agree to share their home wireless connections with other Fon customers using a special router, which splits the signal into public and private streams. In exchange, they get the privilege of using any of the network's wireless signals anywhere in the world for free. Fon has inked important deals with TimeWarner Cable in the United States, BT in Britain and Neuf in France, and its network has expanded to an impressive 600,000 registered users worldwide. Free global internet for the price you already pay at home?

FON is the world’s largest WiFi community and the best way to get connected to the internet for free!
When you buy any Fonera (FON’s line of revolutionary WiFi routers) and connect it to your existing broadband connection, you create a FON Spot (a secure WiFi access point) that allows you to share your WiFi connection with other FON members.

The Fonera 2.0 series allows you to do even more with your WiFi. You can upload videos to YouTube, and photos to Facebook, Picasa or Flickr and download torrents or files, directly to or from an external hard disk...even when your computer is off!

* Founder: Martin Varsavsky
* Funding: Approx. $35 million from Skype, Google, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Excite, Digital Garage and BT
* Employees: Approximately 90 worldwide

Check out their website: http://www.fon.com/en/
For a quick tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlhaNaFc89U&feature=player_embedded#at=41

Google's Floating Data Center

A self-powered data center placed three to seven miles offshore, potentially operating off the grid: Standard shipping containers would house racks of computers that could be transported by truck and placed onto a boat by crane.

The hidden cost of the triumph of the Internet is the rise of the data center. The Net runs on huge complexes of hot, power-hungry servers that eat up real estate and energy in massive quantities — in 2006 data centers consumed a staggering 1.5% of the U.S.'s entire supply of electricity. Engineers at Google may have found a way out: the self-sufficient floating data center. According to a patent filed by Google, wind turbines and wave-powered generators will provide the electricity. Ocean water will cool the servers, which throw off huge amounts of heat. And offshore real estate is essentially free.


A wave-power generator would be the primary source of electricity. But wind turbines could be used to, for example, run water pumps and a tidal power generator could be used in rivers. The patent specifies the use of a so-called Pelamis machine, which uses pontoons with pumps to convert wave motion into electricity. A British company, Pelamis Wave Power, is operating a prototype in Scotland and intends to install one off Portugal.
Google engineers calculate that an array of pontoons spread over a square kilometer (a bit more than a half mile) could produce 30 megawatts of electricity, enough to operate a single system.

Read more at : http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/09/06/google-planning-offshore-data-barges/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10034753-54.html

Zoo Animals Try Online Dating

Zoo Animals Try Online Dating
Katrina A. Goggins, Associated Press. Columbia.

Just like the digital dating services that pair up people, so-called studbooks are used to match most animals held in captivity. The databases containing information on sex, age and weight -- not so much about favorite comfort foods or long walks on the beach -- are used by more than 200 zoos nationally and some internationally. They're practically taking the place of Mother Nature in the not-so wild world of captive animal breeding.

Now, new software is going to the Web, promising more easily accessible data, faster matches and -- in a page out of the most particular of human dating sites -- details on an animal's personality to ease what can be a testy process. At the very least, though, the software will give zookeepers better access to species-level details currently found only in zoo husbandry manuals that now are mostly e-mailed back and forth, said Bob Wiese, director of collections for the Zoological Society of San Diego.
Around since the 1980s in paperback form, most of today's studbooks are in computerized databases. Basic information such as family tree, medical history, age and weight are entered by studbook keepers, then sent to a central location where the data is analyzed and converted into a "master plan" for breeding. But the databases have their limitations. They aren't updated quickly and don't include the extra information on setting the optimal conditions for an animal's breeding.
"It's really about us gathering the best scientific information we can get to make the best decisions about the long-term viability of our populations," Wiese Said.

Check the whole article at: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/09/09/animal-zoo-mating.html

History of the Internet

Published by Vanity Fair a very interesting article on the history of the Internet, in the words of the people who made it.

Fifty years ago, in response to the surprise Soviet launch of Sputnik, the U.S. military set up the Advanced Research Projects Agency. It would become the cradle of connectivity, spawning the era of Google and YouTube, of Amazon and Facebook, of the Drudge Report and the Obama campaign.

Written over 8 chapters:
I: The Conception
II: The Creation
III: The Web
IV: The Browser Wars
V: Going Public
VI: Boom and Bust
VII: Modern Times
VIII: The Last Word
here the link, check it out: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/07/internet200807