Microsoft Bing wants to give Google a run for its money. The Bing team believes that if they index real-time data, that will give them a leg up. The service that has the most real-time data as of right now is Twitter which provides user-generated data, delivered within seconds.
“There has been much discussion of real-time search and the premium on immediacy of data that has been created primarily by Twitter,” stated Microsoft Search Technology Center general manager Sean Suchter. ”Today we’re unveiling an initial foray into integrating more real-time data into our search results, starting with some of the more prominent and prolific Twitterers from a variety of spheres.”
As of right now, only a few prominent Twitter users are being indexed such as Al Gore and Ryan Seacrest. Eventually the company will expand to other users. Microsoft is so serious about search engines that they plan to commit about $11 billion over the next 5 years in that technology.
Tetris turned 25 last month, the Nintendo Gameboy turned 20 in April, and now today the Sony Walkman turns 30 years old. The Walkman revolutionized the way we listened to music in 1979. Below is a timeline of events:
1979 – The first Walkman hit the shelves at a cost of $200 — the model number was the TPS-L2PC. Don’t forget that $200 was quite a bit back then.
1981 – TPS-L2 was introduced in different colors
1983 – A smaller walkman called the WM-20 was introduced and it was the size of a cassette tape case.
1984 – The CD Walkman was introduced
2000 – The NW-MS7 was released and it supported digital files
The Walkman is having a hard time competing against the iPod since it was introduced in 2001. Sony has sold 7 million Walkmans in the year ended in March thus far.
Researchers at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory and the University of Sheffield has designed a rat-looking robot that has the ability to hunt for people that are disaster survivors or are in dangerous areas using the sensors on its whiskers. This robot has been in development over the last 6 years. The robot is called the Spatial Cognition and Representation through Active TouCh Robot (SCRATCHBot).
Skype for the iPhone was released back in April and now the application has been updated. The new version of the Skype iPhone application allows users to send SMS messages and check voicemail. One of the desired features that are lacking in the newest version of the application is push notifications.
“Skype iPhone is kinda useless with no push notifications so 1.1 still kinda useless. Why even include IM capability without it, what are people supposed to do – send me an email that we should skype chat?” wrote a commenter on the Skype Blog.
Push notifications are the ability to inform the iPhone there are incoming messages and incoming calls without the need for the application to be running at the time. AOL has successfully implemented this feature for their AOL Instant Messenger software on the iPhone.
“We’re concentrating on providing the very best experience possible on the iPhone. Your feedback is important – it’s why we’ve included SMS and voicemail in this release. But we can’t do everything at once, unfortunately,” wrote Skype blogger Peter Parkes.
It has only been about a couple of weeks since the iPhone OS 3.0 was released and the new iPhone 3G S phone hit the shelves, but Apple is moving quickly in delivering new versions of their SDKs. Last night the iPhone SDK 3.1 was released to developers. Developers have been reporting some of the immediate changes that were noticed.
The iPhone 3.1 SDK shows improvements in Voice Control functionality and it will work with Bluetooth. The video editing capabilities on the 3G S will be improved since users will be able to save a copy of the original video before they start clipping.
Other improvements include vibration feedback when moving application icons and when moving pasted text to the dialer application. The alphanumeric numbers will be converted to regular numbers when pasted into the dialer application too. For example, copying 1-800-GOOG-411 will be pasted to 1-800-466-4411.
There are about 9 million Ugandans that have access to mobile phones, but do not have Internet access. Google and The Grameen Foundation have partnered up on an initiative that allows Ugandans to receive weather forecasts, farming tips, and even sex advice in the form of text message replies.
Similar projects have been initiated in Ghana and Kenya. But in Uganda, the service is only available to people that use the MTN network. Text messages are sent free of charge and they receive information back in the form of an answer. This is a similar model to what ChaCha was doing in the U.S.
The service seems very convenient for Ugandans, but sometimes the answers that are returned appear to not be the result that the mobile phone owner was expecting. In an interview with the BBC, one Ugandan mother used the service for helping teach her daughter about sex. Before the woman said that she felt awkward, but now she passes the questions to Google and shows the answers to her daughter.
After The Pirate Bay was bought out for $7.7 million yesterday, people were concerned about the service shutting down or turning into a paid model. The Pirate Bay was best known for sharing files for free. But now that the company is owned by a public Swedish company, the service has no choice but to go legit. Here is how the new legit revenue model will work.
According to Hans Pandeya, CEO of Global Gaming Factory users will be asked to pay for downloaded files and royalties will be given to the copyright holder. But The Pirate Bay will pay users to keep sharing torrent files and distribute the files to others. The details about the cost sharing for downloaded files, copyright commission, and the P2P user is not yet known.
One of the biggest problems with this model is that there are too many alternatives out there where users do not have to pay. For example when Napster was taken to court and shut down, KaZaa popped up. When KaZaa was taken down, then LimeWire popped up. And then of course there is YouTube where anyone can listen to any song they search for.
Some of The Pirate Bay’s competitors that are still free include ISOHunt, Mininova, Torrentz, etc. I’d be surprised if The Pirate Bay will be able to pull off this new revenue model.
Earlier this week an amateur journalist interrupted a press conference hosted by President Obama. The interruption was a ringtone of a quacking duck.
Being the good sport that the President is, he asked “Who’s duck is back there?” The audience laughed in reaction to the President’s reaction. Then the President decided to follow up with another joke, “Where do you guys get these ringtones, by the way? I’m just curious.”
I bet that journalist is at home showing his or her kids this video at home claiming that it was their ringtone that interrupted the President’s speech about gay rights.
This is the second time this year that a phone interrupted a presidential press conference. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had to confiscate the phone last time.
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