Rattleblog: Tales from the blogosphere

02-07-2007

by Damien Mulley

There's been iMassive hype about a certain iSomething that was launched this iWeek but we're going to remain an iCertainThing free zone, for this episode at least.

After going off to a Buddhist monastery in Nepal to reflect on life and blogs, we're back, and we're delighted to be back with the new swanky design around us.

Straight from the billion-dollar horse's mouth is news that Google's free directory assistance service, which like all things Google is 100 percent human free, is now offering follow-up text messages that contain directions and even maps. We wonder what the reaction would be in Ireland if they released their free service here.

Niall Kennedy reports that Google is now offering to give seed funding to developers who want to create widgets or gadgets, as Google calls them, that can be used on the Google personalised homepage and on Google Desktop. A gadget can get up to USD5,000 in funding and companies created just to build Google gadgets can get as much as USD100,000 in investment from Google.

Staying with gadgets, Search Engine Land also reports that Google is now disclosing the number of people who are using the gadgets that it has available.

And now for the last bit of Google news before we move on: It seems that via Techcrunch is news that Google could be buying Grandcentral. Grandcentral offers a single private phone number which allows you to create rules that will allow only certain people to access you via it. The phone number stays with you when you move from phone provider: One single number to bind them all. We think it's a sneaky way of giving out your number to people who you don't want to talk to, but had to to be polite. Your call is important to us. Maybe.

Wired reports that Microsoft is getting the jump on Google and will be releasing its own cloud storage service, allowing people to save up to 500MBs of data online which they can access using their Microsoft Live username and password. All well and good, but so far only people in the US can sign up for it.

For those annoyed with an inferior broadband product, David Isen points out a great term for it: Fraudband. We wonder will the name catch on over in Ireland? We're betting if a certain consumer lobby group was around, they'd adopt it.

The only piece we'll note about phones, this time at least, is that Engadget is reporting that Nokia is now thinking that touchscreens aren't so stupid after all. Really guys and gals? With Tablet PCs, touchscreen ticket machines in airports, touchscreen video cameras and digital cameras, you now think that people like touchscreens. We think this is more a "DUH" moment than a paradigm shift.

Moving to games consoles, it seems Nintendo wants to create a second wave of interest in its Wii console and it will be giving people the ability to develop simple games for the machine that can be downloaded online. With Facebook, LinkedIn and possibly even MySpace opening up the hood to allow developers to plug into their systems, the hype alone will be good for Nintendo.

The day the internet went quiet. Did you notice? Last week many of the Internet Radio stations had a day of silence to protest about the new music licencing terms which will put many of the US streaming stations out of business. With the choice cut down even more, that leaves iTunes and file sharing networks getting more business. Is that what the record industry really wants?

Lastly, a lot of attention is being paid to a new search engine about to launch which could very well take on Google and beat it at its own game. Powerset uses natural language processing to search the net. Instead of sucking all the humanity out of the search process, like the big G, Powerset instead concentrates on the human side. We've been on the mark with our predictions on this column so far (Think about the iHypedTelecomsDevice we promised not to mention, for example.) and so we think we'll hear a lot more about Powerset in the next few months and years.

Damien Mulley is an Irish blogger and works as a technical writer in Cork.