David Lawton » Technology

Wolfram | Alpha

David — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:14:51 +0000

I remember reading about this a long time ago and only just saw that it has gone live:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

The idea is that you ask a question, and unlike Google where you are (usually) presented with a list of potentially relevant resources, you are given an answer. It still doesn’t understand a lot of things but presumably will improve over time. However, as far as ‘ask engines’ go, Wolfram is very promising and powerful.

As a test one of the first questions I asked was “how many employees does telus have?”, here’s the Google response:

Now the Wolfram response (pretty impressive!)

Google Buys Plink

David — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 06:00:44 +0000

Google recently purchased a company named Plink, a company focused on creating image-based search engines. The initial concept allows users to identify a piece of artwork simply by taking a photo of it with their phone, but the possibilities for visual search seem limitless:

Google Buys Plink to Improve Visual Mobile Search

HP Buys Palm

David — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 05:17:16 +0000

Struggling Palm has been bought out by Hewlett-Packard according to the HP website. This will allow HP to make a strong move into the Smartphone marketplace.

Palm shares closed Tuesday at $4.63 but after the announcement that HP would pay $5.70 per share have climbed over 25% to $5.83 in after hours trading.

Here’s the news release from HP:
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2010/100428xa.html

The Next iPhone

David — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:38:42 +0000

Apparently the next model of the iPhone was found on the floor of a bar disguised as a current iPhone model and was sold for $10,000 by the finder. Huge oops or clever publicity stunt?

This Is Apple’s Next iPhone – Iphone 4 – Gizmodo

Winscape

David — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 20:40:33 +0000

These screens are embedded into the wall and track one person in the room (using a Wii remote) to provide perspective. It has to be seen to be appreciated, it looks really cool, the limitless variety of movies and images is very appealing. Check out the video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqu9NuINKbc

For more info visit the Winscape website where you can read about how this was built and download the trial software as well.

Why is 9:41 the Time on Apple Product Photos?

David — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 21:25:36 +0000

Now that is detailed presentation planning! The time is chosen to correspond to the approximate time during the presentation when Steve Jobs displays the image of the new product. Could we have expected any less from Apple?

Why 9:41 Is the Official Time of Apple Product Photos | Dan’s FC Blog | Fast Company.

PDAs and the Importance of Price

David — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:30:29 +0000

http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/2010/01/28/apples-ipad-and-the-importance-of-price

Interesting article from Peter Merholz at Adaptive Path arguing that price was one of the main design considerations for the Apple iPad, similar to what Palm did with the successful PalmPilot.

Interactive TV Ads

David — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:09:04 +0000

http://www.techspot.com/news/36243-cablevision-to-roll-out-interactive-tv-ads.html

Interesting (yet dangerous) idea. . .

Event Video: Layar 2.0 Walk Through

David — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 03:28:36 +0000

WOW.

“Raimo van der Klein, CEO of Layar, announces the new global release of the Layar Reality Browser and walks through the new features. The video is less than 10 minutes.

View the slides here in pdf
layar.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/layar-20-walkthrough.pdf

or as a webversion
layar.com/catalog/layar_2.0_Walk_through.html”

Google officially announces Google Chrome Operating System

David — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:12:02 +0000

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html