Google is hitting the ‘nets hard this week. The Mountain View, Ca. behemoth has unleashed a fresh batch of fancy tricks for their avid followers, further extending the Googleplex’s empire beyond search and into other facets of life. Not only did Google open Wave to 1 million people and launch its Chrome browser for Mac users, but they’re dropping other potential game changers as well.
While Twitter and Facebook (and now Bing) are great at finding out what’s going on right now, Google is not. However, on Monday Google decided to fight back and launched a real-time search function of its own. Now when you search on the main Google page for any current topic, a new box showing the “latest results” springs up. The new feature is a real-time stream of content, continuously updated with links from news articles and blog posts, as well as short bursts of user-generated content from Twitter and FriendFeed [AtlanticWire]. Facebook and MySpace results are coming soon. The real-time search hasn’t been fully released yet, but if you navigate to Google Trends and click on a hot topic, you’ll get a preview of what’s to come.
Not satisfied with limiting their users to text or voice web searches, Google unveiled Google Goggles, a picture-based search function for its Android phone. You snap a photo by centering your image in the Goggles screen and pressing a small camera icon at the bottom of the screen. Goggles then scans the image, analyzes it and identifies it. If the image is of a business card, Goggles separates the information into fields and lets you put it into your Google Contacts database. If it’s a book, the app offers to let you purchase or research it. If it’s a store or a landmark, Goggles fetches Google search info about the location. (Objects such as cars, animals or people aren’t, according to the instructions, really identifiable yet) [ComputerWorld]. Basically, you’ll be able to know everything about a lot of the stuff around you simply by pointing and clicking with your Droid.
This past Monday, just in time for the holiday season, Google launched an entirely new way to window shop. Google is sending window decals to more than 100,000 U.S. businesses that they’ve identified as the most sought-after on Google and Google Maps. Much like the Yelp stickers you’re accustomed to seeing in businesses around town, these decals will appear in store windows and highlight the business’ status as a Google Favorite Place [Mashable]. But there’s a twist: The decals include QR codes, which are funky looking bar codes that people can scan with their cell phones to bring up reviews or coupons for that location. QR codes aren’t new, but they’ve struggled to gain popularity. However, Google is banking on the integration of QR codes with Google maps and its Android phone to push them past the competition (namely Yelp). Others are more skeptical.
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Image: flickr / manfrys
December 9th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Amazing. Some people may question Google’s motives but whether you like it or not Google is changing the way we live our lives, and I say for the better.
February 4th, 2010 at 1:59 am
I have a lot of reservation about how it can decipher the information and put it in the right fields. I have a lot of business cards from overseas, and they are of all fonts, and styles. But I was pleasantly surprised by CARDSCAN abilility to process the information and put it in the right fields. We may have to tweak here and there, but it is much better than typing in everything yourself. I highly recommend it.
February 13th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
I am a huge fan of google, google mail and all other google products. Google really IS the technically most well developed, the most user-friendly, the most democratic, the least privacy-intruding, the most virus-secure… let´s face it… it IS the best option to choose!!!
I know this is going to make my comment sound as if somebody is paying me for some kind of ad, but I believe google doesn´t need any kind of advertising… it´s much too good for that too!
I have learnt so much thanks to google!!!
Let me use this opportunity to say THANK YOU google! You are a huge improvement of people´s life quality! I am not kidding! Thanks to YOU people gain INFOrmation at a truley QUICK pace FOR FREE!!!
WHO NEEDS PRINTED NEWPAPERS nowadays? NOBODY! Who needs letters nowadays? Only those who love to write with their favourite pen (or pen pal)! Who needs to buy tons of encyclopedia and all sorts of dictionaries nowadays? What for?! Go online and “go google” instead!!!
February 21st, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Oh you shortsighted people!! Can’t see the future which is waaaay beyond 1984???? You have been seduced by “ease of operation” which is Google’s strength. You don’t want to overtax your brains so you let Google spoon feed you the information (selectively arranged) so that you can just dumbly look at their selected results.
If an octopus had all it’s tentacles wrapped around you, would you fight or just succumb? Well, transpose that to Google’s tentacles, yes, tentacles masquerading as “helpful” and saving you from thinking…..you can fight or succumb and looks like most people are succumbing! You will rue the day (when it’s too late) that you didn’t fight!
July 17th, 2011 at 6:59 am
I know this isn’t subject related but, I like your theme and was wondering what name of it is? Thanks!