Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Bill Gates promised frequent updates way back when they were doing the final testing of IE7. Yet somehow, it’s been almost two years before they finally released the beta mode of Internet Explorer 8 just today. Some will hurrah, some will cringe, some won’t care one way or the other. But...it’s out...and along with actually seeming to be an improvement over the previous version...it’s pretty clear that the folks at Microsoft are also using their latest browser as a clever little way to try to take over some Google ground.

I admit, I’m a diehard Firefox user. And when I checked out IE8 beta, I immediately recognized the same thing others seem to be seeing. The Smart Address Bar is very similar to the Awesome Bar in Firefox 3. When you start to type in the address bar, it tries to guess where you want to go, based on where you’ve been before. Although I have to give it to Microsoft, their Smart Bar seems to do the job even a little better. It shows history items, autocomplete suggestions, and your saved Favorites all in lists that you can collapse or expand with just a click. Also, you can delete an address from the Smart Bar with just a click as well, which is really handy for any addresses you may have in there that were typed incorrectly or if you have bookmarks you just don’t use anymore. 

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With Android hitting later this year, you’d think Google would be content with it’s place in the cellular phone market.  Apparently they aren’t satisfied with just an OS.  A Reuters report shows that Google is in talks with Verizon to use Google as the default search engine for Verizon cell phones.

This probably seems like a small move at first.  But, the plan as of now apparently means adding a Google search bar to the homepage of Verizon phones.  It’s not clear what that could mean, but if it is the main screen on the phone, it could make for quite a few extra dollars for Verizon when people with data plans accidentally use it.  The plan would also have Google and Verizon sharing revenue from search ads when it is used on a Verizon phone.

The only small thing that could be bad with the deal so far is Google want to save the information from cell phone charges.  Google wouldn’t use that information against us, though.  Will it?

Read [Reuters]

Only ten days left of August. Microsoft claimed Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 would be out some time this month. Well, the countdown is on. And hmmmm...there are rumors flying around that it is going to be a special version. Private. Yeah, code name for “porn mode”.

Private browsing lets a user go anywhere they want without leaving any tracks. It’s like they were just magically never there.  Firefox decided not to go with it, and currently Safari is the only browser sporting this feature. The Mozilla Foundation, however does argue that “although while viewing pornography may be a popular use case due to the nature of content on the Web, assuming that this is the only reason that users need private browsing trivializes the overall feature. For instance, users may wish to begin a private browsing session to research a medical condition, or plan a surprise vacation or birthday party for a loved one.”

If trademark filings are any indications...the rumors of IE taking on private browsing may indeed be based on fact. July 30th filings by Microsoft:

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Developed by the Canadian company Idee, the TinEye search engine is a fantastic new breakthrough in the realm of search engines that allows users to search for their photographs anywhere on the Internet.  Users are able to actually search for a picture by uploading it, and then having the program run a pixel by pixel search across the ‘Net. All found instances of the image are flagged, regardless of whether it has been cropped, merged or digitally altered in any way.

Leila Boujnane, CEO of TinEye, has the following to say about their program.

“TinEye does for images what Google does for text. We are not limited by words, Google can only find an image if a particular search word is in proximity to it. We have the ability on a large scale to tell somebody where one of their images has appeared and how it’s being used.”

The program is also not limited by the quality of the input image according to Boujnane.  She states that “anything you would consider a preview image or low resolution image would work. I can take a photograph of a picture in the Louvre with my mobile and upload it to TinEye and it would dump me on the page of that Wikipedia page related to that painting.”

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There can’t be many people who have been on the internet, and not also been on YouTube, and the home video craze has really caught on. This is both good and bad: it makes videos more accessible but leaves the door open for happy slapping idiots trying to make a name for themselves. And recently another problem has arisen, it’s starting to get a bit too big.

With a reported 13 hours of video being uploaded every minute it is becoming increasingly difficult to find the video that you want, however specific you are. So new techniques are needed, and there are plans to use voice recognition to automatically convert the words into metadata which in turn is embedded in the video meaning key words can be searched for with increased effectiveness. It also means, if you know what video you are looking for, you can directly quote from the video and thus find it easily.

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Ex-Google worker Anna Patterson has already sold away one of her innovative search techniques to Google before, but doesn’t plan on selling her latest idea to Google anytime soon. In fact, instead of helping Google, she aims to single-handedly take down the search giant. Her new search engine, Cuil, aims to be better than Google had ever been. Initially kept on a low profile, Cuil (pronounced “Cool") was designed by three Google engineers and boasts the fact that it indexes about 3 times more pages than even Google does (around 120 billion pages). Whether this will convince Google users to make the transfer is another story completely, but they can definitely try.

The block result layout places results in a tiled manner around the web page instead of Google’s more generic ranked list style. However, both the page and its search results seem to take quite a while to load and the website has cut in and out of use the entire day. It’s definitely off to a rough start, but Patterson’s claim of its wider scope seems promising. The search results now, though, are lacking in many areas. They seem to either be repeat results, irrelevant material, or ad placement sites. Maybe the increased scope of sites may contain a greater number of useless web information. Either way, it seems that it has little chance of making that much of a difference in the web search sector. After all, Microsoft and Yahoo are spending millions of dollars on their search engines and Google still seems to be gaining more ground. Let’s hope that they give up soon and offer their techniques to the search giants again, because, quite frankly, most people “doubt [Cuil] will be keeping anyone at Google awake at night.”

Read [CNN]

My, my, Google. It seems the words “Google” and “Privacy” can be found in quite a few articles across the internet as of late. Quite a few falling on the non-flattering side. Perhaps that’s why Google finally made a point of updating their main page to a never-before offered link to their privacy terms AND posting about the update on their corporate blog.

The issue was brought to the light in the first place by NY Times reporter Saul Hansell, when he asked if the company was violating California law by not posting a link to its privacy policy on its home page. The answer? Yes. That is when privacy advocates jumped in and became involved. Although in what is seeming to become an “oh so Google” move...it wasn’t done until Day 31 when the legal time frame following notice is 30 days. 

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In days past, photographers had to rely on their memory to answer the question “where did I take this shot?”. Not so any more. Geotagging is fast becoming popular in the days of digital photography. By definition, Geotagging is the process of adding a form of geospatial geographical identification metadata to your images. It can also be added to other media like websites or RSS feeds. This metadata almost always consists of latitude and longitude coordinates; although it can sometimes also include things like altitude, bearing, or even location names depending on how specific you want to get.

Geotagging can also be useful if you are looking for location-specific information. For example, you are trying to find images taken near Red Rock Canyon. You simply enter the latitude and longitude coordinates into a Geotagging-enabled image search engine. There you go! These same search engines can also be used to locate location-based news, websites and more.

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In an apparent attempt to boost it’s rather floundering search presence on the Net, Microsoft announced its plan to purchase the relatively unknown company Powerset.  This startup company has developed semantic search technology based upon natural language processing.

What this type of software does is use specific linguistic algorithms to determine what certain queries submitted to the engine mean, and then formulates answers based on data existing in a knowledge repository. Wikipedia is the repository used by Powerset. Personally, I don’t know...this could be a good or bad thing considering Joe Schmoe public writes Wikipedia. Founded by CEO Barney Pell, COO Steve Newcomb and Product Architect Lorenzo Thione, Powerset is a Silicon Valley company that was first launched in 2006.

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It’s the summer movie season and sequels are always big at the box office, so why not try another shot at some kind of Microsoft-Yahoo blockbuster?

In a move seemingly designed to keep technology reporters and bloggers chained to their laptops over the weekend, Microsoft announced Sunday that it was “considering and has raised with Yahoo! an alternative that would involve a transaction with Yahoo! but not an acquisition of all of Yahoo!” That was confirmed in a separate press release from Yahoo! which said the company “continues to consider a number of value maximizing strategic alternatives...we remain open to pursuing any transaction which is in the best interest of our stockholders.”

Translation: thanks for the push, Carl Icahn. We’ll take it from here.

Several tech reporters with access to sources within the negotiations say this time, Microsoft wants to either buy outright or partner with Yahoo’s search division and related advertising services. Jerry Yang’s company can keep mail, messaging, news; many Yahoo! fans have said on various blogs that the company had lost its focus on those business segments while trying to take on Google in online ads.

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