Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Contrary to popular belief, the first laser wasn’t really reverse-engineered from Megatron of the Transformers. It was actually created by a guy named Theodore Maiman by shining a high-power flash lamp on a ruby rod with silver-coated surfaces. And if he hadn’t made the first laser work on May 16, 1960 at the Hughes Research Laboratory in California, there wouldn’t be laser etched Nokia Prism phones, laser printers, or convenience in the laser-powered supermarket check-out counter. Just think how much we would have lost if not for that one great innovation. Today’s the day to be thankful for it, because it’s the laser’s 48th year anniversary. Here’s to many more years, and I hope they finish my laser death rays in time for the 50th anniversary!

Via [Google]

One week ago, we reported about how Google added new features to its translation service, like new languages and language detection, but back then it still had not even been announced by Google yet. The day for that has come, though, and that day is today.

Google now officially announces the addition of 10 new languages to its translation service, including Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian and Swedish. Also, as noted in our earlier post, there is a new feature called “Detect Language” that saves you from having to figure out the language of origin of the text or web page you’re translating. Certainly adds convenience to the service, much more than anything else.

Head on over to the official Google Blog for the details.

Read [Official Google Blog]

If you’ve been monitoring news in another language like I’ve been doing this morning, you might have also noticed that the homepage of Google’s Translation service has undergone a bit of a makeover. And if you mess around with it a little you’ll find a few new features that haven’t even been announced by Google yet.

In addition to the thirteen languages that Google Translate already supports, it now offers translations for eleven new languages, which are Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian and Swedish. So now you can translate text and web pages in 25 languages, plus there’s a cool new feature that lets you translate something even if you don’t know the language of origin. It’s called Detect Language, and lets you translate text and web pages without asking you for the original language you are trying to translate from. It’s a godsend for people like me who don’t know their Simplified Chinese from the Traditional, and I’m sure a lot of other people are going to like this new feature as well.

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I just hate goodbyes. And I especially hate it when I have to say goodbye to something that has been dear to me even for just a while. But sadly, Google doesn’t seem to be planning on taking back its announcement regarding the shutdown of Picasa’s photo sharing service, Hello. On Hello’s home page, all you will be able to find now is this: “Hello will be shut down on May 15th.” Followed by a short and optimistic message from the Hello Team. In case you’re not familiar with Hello, you can find a copy of their old home page here, and a copy of their “how it works” page here. Well, there goes another startup, I guess.

Read [Hello] Via [Google Blogoscoped]

While we’re sure that Google’s Android platform will be loaded on a bunch of new devices some time in the near future, we still haven’t heard of any manufacturer or handset maker announce when they will release something officially. Except today. VP and General Manager of T-Mobile’s Broadband and New Business Division Joe Sims has just confirmed that T-Mobile USA will be offering at least one mobile device running Google’s soon-to-be released in full Android platform, and that there will be more than one Android powered device, probably for the sake of variety, of course. Joe also confessed that he was impressed after seeing what Android is capable of doing, and mentions that “(The move to an open platform) will be innovation across the board, not just one device.”

Does this mean that Android is going to eventually take over WinMo in powering T-Mobile’s devices? We’ll never know for sure; at least not for now. All I know is if they can try and release early, they should. By the time they come out with their Android-powered gizmo on the year’s end, Apple’s 3G iPhone (if it already exists by then) would have already killed the competition—as if they aren’t already doing it now.

Read [CNN Money] Via [IntoMobile]

With any product or service, there’s always going to be room for growth (and complaints).  Below are a few Gmail features I think would make my life, and possibly some others lives easier.

• Ability to Mark ONE Email in a Conversation as Unread
• Colored Stars
• Set Email Importance
• Ability to Add Items to a To-Do List

Read more…

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This certainly is an unusual court case, and I doubt there will be enough evidence for this Pittsburgh couple to win their case. Basically, their main argument is Google had put their house into Google’s Street View service.

Aaron and Christine Boring, who are the residents of this house have filed a lawsuit in Allegheny County’s Court of Common pleas. In this lawsuit they accused Google of “intentional and/or grossly reckless invasion.” At this point, I still don’t think Google did anything wrong, but here is where the case gets interesting. According to the residents heir street is “clearly marked with a ‘Private Road’ sign.” The Borings went so far as to say that being included in the Street View caused them “mental suffering” and it also, somehow, diminished the value of their home. In the lawsuit, they are seeking about $25,000 in damages and want to get a court order, which would make Google get rid of the images of their house they had taken.

I think Google shouldn’t have included the houses on this street especially if it was marked with a Private Road sign, or if they really wanted to, they should have checked with the residents. I also wonder how this is different from Google Maps and the satellite view, while the image is obviously not as clear, it can still be pictured, I can see suing Google to have the images removed, but $25,000 sounds crazy.

Images [Google Pictures] Via [TechCrunch]

Google has announced the availability of Google Docs even when a user is offline. Using Google Gears, Google Docs will create a document cloud of the user’s online Google Docs accounts. This doc cloud can then be accessed by the user on the desktop and subsequently the user can edit the document and save it on the desktop again. The fun then starts the next time the user connects to the Internet, Google Docs (via Google Gears) will then sync up the documents edited offline with the documents online. 

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Thor, the deer has been “geo-hacked” and undergone an interesting experiment, all in the name of science. Valery Hronusov, a developer of numerous geo-hacks, actually thought up the blog posting deer scenario. Using his tips and ideas, ‘Siberian’, a Google Earth Community member, figured out how to track a deer by attaching a cell phone (to send emails) and a GPS device (to track the movements) of Thor (the deer) throughout a suburban area in Pennsylvania. During Thor’s travels the GPS device sent back tracking coordinates every five minutes. The ingenious automated system used all free services, some tech gadgets, and a spreadsheet to publicize nearly every move Thor makes.

I assume that the tech laden collar is worth saving and I hope that Thor is too. Aside from being a neat project, all of this makes me wonder why anyone would want to track a deer like this, except for the obvious, “because I could” mentality that you find among many geeks. Of course the more official reason why is because “they are studying deers living in suburban areas in Pennsylvania.”

Read [Wired] Via [Google Earth Blog]

Google, trusty search engine and email provider for many actually has a clause within its fine print which states that those under 18 are not permitted to use the site, or any of its features. The Google conglomerate covers Google’s search, Gmail, YouTube, news and images.

The Terms of Service state that:

“You may not use ... Google’s products, software, services and web sites ... and may not accept the Terms if ... you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google.”

Of course to those within the USA, the legal age to form a binding contract is 18, meaning anyone under the age of 18 is currently violating Google’s terms, which judging from a huge number of YouTube videos, that number is going to be high.

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