Teknovis

A friend recently made me aware of a new child locating service called num8 by a company called Lok8u. The service is delivered using a child-friendly watch that contains a GPS receiver, and it uses Google Maps to display the child’s location.

The Lok8u website claims:

Now available.. the world’s first GPS locator that locates your child…not just the device.

And…

num8 is the world’s first GPS locator device that has been specifically designed with children in mind.

I am wary of these claims… For example, I think that Wherify would dispute these claims (if it was still operating)!

Wherify Wireless Watches

I am sure that there are many others also!

Tags: Google, GPS, Lok8u, Wherify

I read an article during the week about a letter of support for Net Neutrality from some of the biggest, and most well-known, Internet based companies in the world. The article is Big names support net neutrality, and it lists the following supporters:

The letter, signed by the chief executives of Google, Ebay, Skype, Facebook, Amazon and Sony Electronics among others, says that maintaining data neutrality helps businesses to compete on the basis of content alone.

And…

Other signatories included community websites Digg, Flickr, LinkedIn and Craigslist.

This list of companies does not really surprise me, as they probably have the most to gain from Net Neutrality. Conversely, it is probably the telcos who have the most to loose!

Tags: Amazon, Craigslist, Digg, eBay, Facebook, Flickr, Google, LinkedIn, Net Neutrality, Skype, Sony

I learned today that DCU is to outsource all of its email to Google. I estimate that DCU must have tens of thousands of email accounts. So I would have thought that it would be more cost effective to provide this service in-house.

For more detail about this see Information Systems and Services.

Tags: DCU, Google

A friend sent me this very humorous link:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=recursion

:D

Update 25/7/2009

Google has updated the results page for this search :o To see how it looked yesterday see Google Helps You Understand Recursion.

Update 4/8/2009

The recursive result is back again!

Tags: Google

The big news on the Internet today is that Google has announced the launch of a new operating system for web applications. This new operating system is currently called Google Chrome OS, and the official announcement is Introducing Google Chrome OS.

Google Chrome OS appears to be the Chrome browser built on top of a Linux kernel. Therefore, there is some debate regarding whether this really is an operating system or not :o

I think that it certainly will make the operating space more competitive, which is a good thing!

For more information about this see Google plans Chrome-based Web operating system, Google Chrome: Redefining The Operating System, and Google polishes Chrome into netbook OS.

Tags: Google, Linux

I came across a new search engine today called Searchme. I tried a few known searches on it, and I think that the results are not as good as the results on Google :o However, I really like the interface! It is very useful to see the rendered target page, and it is very easy to transition between results. However, perhaps this is just a novelty, and it might be too slow in reality.

Tags: Google, Searchme

I am hearing and reading a lot about Bing this week! Microsoft seems to be putting a lot of resources behind it! I have not tried using it yet. This is mostly because I am happy with Google, so there is no real incentive for me to change my search engine. I previously had very bad experiences with Cuil. (I must write about them here :o )

Today somebody showed me the Maps feature of Bing. I thought that the interface seemed nice, and the satellite photos were good. It certainly is as good as Google Maps.

However, then I was shown the Bird’s Eye view! This really impressed me!

Bird's Eye view of Camp Nou in Bing Maps

Above you can see the Bird’s Eye view of Camp Nou (home of the 2009 Champions League winners).

Tags: Cuil, Google, Microsoft

Last week Google announced Google Wave. It is interesting, although I am unsure how successful it will be in reality :o

To learn more about it read Could Google Wave Redefine Email and Web Communication? and Google Wave: A Complete Guide.

Tags: Google

I previously described how Google will photograph the streets of Dublin for Google Street View in Google Street View Comes to Ireland.

This morning I spotted one of the cars taking the photos in the north side of the city! I am hoping that I will be visible when the photos are eventually published online!

The car that was being used was a red hatch-back, and I think that it had Irish registration plates on it. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to take a photo of it using my PDA :(

Tags: Google, Ireland

I read an interesting article during the week that described how Google Latitude was used to locate, apprehend, and arrest the thief of a stolen purse! I guess that this is great advertising for Google! To read the full article see Google nabs purse snatcher.

The most interesting thing that I learned from this article is that the telcos charge the police for this location information, and the charge varies depending on how fast the police want this information! I wonder if this only occurs in the US, or if it occurs in the EU also.

I am surprised that the telcos are not required to supply this location information free-of-charge due to either freedom of information (the mobile phone owner’s location information) or emergency services legislation!

Tags: Google