Author: Duncan Geere
Google Timeline results graduates from Labs
Towards the start of last year, Google experimented with different ways to view search results in its “Experimental” section. They were evidently happy enough with one of them – Timeline – that it’s now appearing in some queries in the main results. Timeline allows you to browse results by when they were posted, or when they ocurred.
The picture above is for a search for “book of revelations”, though that search no longer displays the timeline. Perhaps Google is still tweaking it a little. I hope it stays, I rather like it, but it does beg the question – what’s next? Search by smell?
(via Search Engine Land)
Related posts: Google shows off 2008’s top searches | Kosmix.com – search, and crucially, context
Try Spotify – the best digital music service in the world – from anywhere in the world
Spotify, the steaming service that’s by FAR my favourite piece of software of 2008, is currently invite-only and limited to UK, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Spain and France. However, there’s a sneaky way of getting in anyway, that TechCrunch spotted in a Digg comment.
It’s pretty simple. Visit a proxy site, like DaveProxy, and from there, go to this URL. Sign up with a UK postcode (how about the BBC’s postcode: W12 7RJ), and you’re all set. The best on-demand digital music service out there is yours. Try it out, and share a playlist in the comments below. I’ll start you off with my Best of 2008.
Oh, and if you have problems with accessing the site after 14 days, then FileShareFreak’s got you sorted out. More proxy fun.
Spotify Signup (via TechCrunch)
Related posts: Spotify – stream all the music you could ever want | Last.fm music service comes to Vodafone
New Palm smartphone info leaks – touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard
CrunchGear has managed to get some info on Palm’s new smartphone, which they claim will be launched on Thursday. There’s no name or anything yet, but there’s some basic info. It’ll be portrait-oriented, touchscreen, and it’ll have a slide-down QWERTY keyboard.
It’ll run Palm’s new Nova OS, which is being called “amazing”. As well as your regular Palm contacts and calendar stuff, you’ll also get some media playback functionality, but there’s no word on formats or anything else yet. As soon as we hear more, we’ll share it.
Palm (via CrunchGear)
Related posts: Palm: struggling smartphone company to lay off workers | Really rather pretty Palm Treo Pro accidentally unveiled
Freescale Semiconductor planning 1GHz, low-power netbook chip
At CES this week, chip makers Freescale Semiconductor will be launching a ARM chip architecture-based i.MX51 processor, that Freescale reckon could bring about $199 (£140ish) 1GHz netbooks. It’ll be a competitor to Intel’s Atom chip, which powers many of the netbooks in the market today.
However, Freescale don’t see themselves as competing with Intel, because their product is targeted at the lower end of the market, with machines running Linux rather than Windows XP. You’ll start to see machines with these chips in entering production towards the middle of the year, and showing up to buy in time for Christmas 2009.
Freescale Semiconductor (via Cnet)
Related posts: Intel chip roadmap emerges, “Medfield” and “Pineview” promised | Intel’s Xeons: faster, more eco-friendly quad core chips on the loose
Phone problems on New Year's night? Cut the networks some slack…
O2 announced today that a record number – 166,000,000 – of text messages were sent over its network during the 24-hour period ending at 7.30am on New Year’s Day. That’s 1,900 a second, but obviously in the hour or so around the New Year, that will have been considerably higher.
Extrapolating out a bit, given three and a half other major phone networks, that means that something like half a billion messages were sent in the UK in a 24-hour period. I’m an O2 customer, and had a perfectly fine phone conversation just after midnight with no connection problems whatsoever. If you’ve got a system that can cope with that, and survive unscathed, then I salute you.
O2 Media Centre (via @O2UKOfficial)
Related posts: Textecution – an extremely clever mobile app that stops you texting while you’re driving | Textually challenged start petition to disable iPhone auto-correction feature
Next-gen Vuzix VR glasses will be unveiled at CES
You might remember Vuzix from the VR920s that I reviewed back in October. They were bulky, unresponsive, and difficult to configure. These, however, look like a different kettle of fish. Specifically, a kettle of fish shaped like a pair of really nice sunglasses.
As well as the design getting a massive kick up the arse, the new glasses should also feature improved screens with considerably better immersiveness than the older model. The glasses unveiled at CES will be the non-interactive ‘watch-videos-on-your-ipod’ version, but here’s hoping that an interactive gaming model like the VR920 will be released shortly after with the necessary built-in accelerometers.
(via Gadget Lab)
Related posts: SHINY VIDEO REVIEW: Vuzix iWear VR920 | Vuzix announces widescreen virtual reality glasses
HP shows off "Firefly" concept gaming laptop
Pity it’s just a concept, but at least one laptop that HP will be showing off at CES next week looks *amazing*. Laptop Magazine has managed to get a hands-on of the HP Firefly – an innovative gaming laptop. Click over the jump for the full details of this beast.
WoW fan threatens suicide to Blizzard rep, gets arrested
An unnamed 17-year-old was taken into police custody the other day in Ohio, following a threat that he’d commit suicide to an in-game Blizzard representative (known as a GM). The staffer contacted local emergency services, who showed up at the kid’s house.
The kid told the GM that “he was suicidal and the game was the only thing he had to live for”. Other people have tried stuff like that on Blizzard before, but this is the first time that someone’s been arrested over it.
Internet Explorer browser usage dives below 70%, Firefox hits 20%
It’s no secret that internet browser Firefox has been one of the shining lights of the open source movement, taking market share from Microsoft in a way that Linux hasn’t ever quite been able to. Well, in November last year, usage of Internet Explorer dipped below 70% for the first time in a decade, and Firefox’s market share rose above 20%.
At its peak in 2003, Internet Explorer was running on nearly 94.5% of the world’s internet-using computers. Since then, however, usage has steadily declined, due to endless bugs and security vulnerabilities leading to poor public perception of the software.
YouTube Video of the Week: Stellated Rhombic Dodecahedrons.
Okay. Pay attention. This is the transformation of two stellated rhombic dodecahedrons from a cube, according the bloke in the video. I don’t really know what that means, but that might be because I’m blinded by the power of geometry-based-awesomeness.
It’s also known as the Yoshimoto Cube, and you can buy it here. Bit late for a stocking filler, I’m afraid.
(via Gizmodo)
Related videos: Die! Santa! Die! | 2008 Roundup
