Google Revamps Its iPhone App

by Ben Parr

from  http://mashable.com/

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Google has released a major update to its iPhone app, giving it a new design, new features and even a new name.

Google Search for iPhone, formerly Google Mobile, features a brand-new interface for searching the web and accessing apps. The mobile search interface is now more like the regular Google.com interface. The mobile search app also includes quick access to Voice Search and to Google Googles, which lets users conduct searches via photo.

The biggest update to the Google Search app is a new search toolbar that is accessible by swiping from left to right. Google.com users will immediately recognize this toolbar. It’s almost identical to the left-hand column that appears on all Google Search result pages. Users can access news, image, shopping, video, blog, discussion, social, and place searches from the new search toolbar — thus dramatically improving the usefulness of Google’s iPhone app.

The new app includes another feature: the ability to pick up where you left off. If you get dragged into a series of phone calls while in the middle of a search, you can simply return to the page you were visiting by tapping the lower half of the page. The app also includes the familiar hotlist of Google’s mobile web apps, from Gmail to Google Earth.

In short, the app is a dramatic improvement from the previous version. It is faster, more intuitive and includes a deeper stable of mobile search features. Our only complaint: given that we’re in the fourth generation of iPhone, Google really should have released this app a long time ago.

Google Instant Streaming Search Results Eliminate the Search Button

From: http://gizmodo.com/

The Google streaming search results are here. Already leaked, and seen in the wild by users, the new Google search updates on-the-fly, as-you-type, without you having to hit the search button when you're done. They call it Google Instant.

To recap, here are some of the recent search changes at Google.

This is what a search looks like right now. The user-interaction part where you type in a query and selecting a result takes the most time.

Here's a video showing Google instant. You can try it out by visiting this site and setting that as your home page.

The search results automatically pop up as you're typing, complete with auto correcting. If your search has various suggestions, you can scroll up and down to each selection and the page will automatically update to reflect what would happen if you had actually searched for that.

Google says it's not exactly "search as you type", but they predict what you're likely to type and bring you results for that, instead of the half-of-a-word you only typed.

A screenshot of it working, showing the result of what Google things I'm going to type, when I've only typed Goo.

Google Instant will be available on Chrome, Firefox, Safari and IE 8 starting today. They'll roll out as part of their home page and search results today, but they'll roll out in the next week internationally (for people who are signed in), in these countries:

Here are the pieces that Google say make up the pie. Instant results, Predictions and Scroll to Search.

A sample Google search: Typing the letter W predicts that you're going to look for weather, and knows your location, so it looks up weather for you in your location after just one keypress.

Prediction! If someone types in "the gi" when you don't know the entire title of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo", it'll predict the title for you and show you results so you can see if it's what you want.

And scrolling to search gives you various information, say, if you want to take a vacation to yosemite, the predictions are stuff like, weather, maps, lodgings and other likely results you'd want if you searched for this.

When all three gears come together, this is what you get. Feedback.

In Google's example, they show that three searches (searching for a a title, searching for the title + musical, searching for the title + musical + tickets to find tickets), can be combined into "one" search, because you get auto-predict and streaming results when you continue to type.

Upcoming!

Google Instant is coming to mobiles, in the future. It works the same way as it does on the desktop. It's coming "later this fall".

Some interesting Q&A results from Google's page:

Q:
Will Google Instant slow my Internet connection?

A:
We anticipate that Google Instant will not slow your Internet connection, and we plan to automatically turn it off for very slow connections. Even though we are serving more results pages, the additional load this enhancement creates is very small when compared to other types of web services such as streaming video and online gaming. We've also worked hard to minimize the amount of data that is sent and received during the search process. For example, when rendering new results as you type, we only send the parts of the page that change, without updating the static elements, such as a the page frame around the results.

Q:
If an offensive or lewd word is a fraction of my query, will Google push these results in front of me as I type?

A:
As always, we provide options to filter the content you see in search. You can choose to set SafeSearch to filter out explicit content, and parents can lock SafeSearch to the strict setting. In addition, autocomplete excludes certain terms related to pornography, violence and hate speech. Learn more about SafeSearch.

This will be on web browsers (Chrome), from the search box, in the next few months.

Send an email to Jason Chen, the author of this post, at jchen@gizmodo.com.

Spokeo: The Internet White Pages For Stalkers

by Timothy James Duffy
from: http://www.techi.com/

Concerned about the security of your personal information on the internet? We all are, and thanks to Mark Zuckerberg, we’re more concerned than ever before. While having your Facebook profile show up in search engines for anyone talented enough to Google your name may be worrisome, it’s far from the worst case scenario. What if there was a website that pulled data from all of your social networking profiles, from Twitter to Flickr, and put it on display for anyone with curious eyes to see?

I hate to break it to you, but there is… introducing… Spokeo!

What Is A Spokeo?

Founded by a team of Stanford alumni in 2006, Spokeo didn’t start out pure evil. The original vision for Spokeo.com was to be a social networking aggregator, a la FriendFeed. This would allow their users to follow their friends, family, and colleagues across several social networking platforms. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Well, Spokeo’s alarming business model began to unveil shortly thereafter. Redesigning their site in 2008, Spokeo made it possible for users to import their e-mail contacts and create friend lists. At this point, it became apparent that Spokeo had more information on you than you may be comfortable with, including LinkedIn profiles, Picasa photos, and personal blog posts.

This year, Spokeo revamped their site once again, transforming into the all-knowing, data-hungry monster it is today.

How Does It Work?

Type in a name, any name, and if you’re feeling specific feel free to narrow your search by adding in a city and state. Spokeo will then pull data from its massive scraped database of personal information and provide you with every detail you did, or didn’t want to know about that person’s life. Now, if you’re skeptical, you may think that this isn’t as bad as it seems — who cares if someone can search information that people have knowingly and willingly made available across social networking websites, right? Sure, that’s a valid argument, but (and this is a big BUT) it doesn’t stop at social networking sites.

Spokeo collects information not only from online profiles, but also from government censuses, property listings, and business websites. Sure, this information is all publically accessible, but did you really fill out your census assuming that your answers would be easily searchable on the internet? The real concern here lies in the fact that all of this information is taken from different sources, stacked together, and readily displayed for the average (or not so average) person to find.

What Information Does Spokeo Provide?

So what information, exactly, does Spokeo have on you? You may not want to know the answer. Let’s start with a rundown of the “basic profile” information: name, address, phone number, age, gender, ethnicity, zodiac sign, relationship, children, occupation, education level, hobbies, and home ownership status.

Moving on, anyone who looks you up will be provided with a list of your personal interests and hobbies that include: which sports you play, what kind of books you read, your taste in music, personality traits, what type of automobiles you prefer, and what type of investments you research. Oh, and that’s just the beginning.

Searchers are then given a breakdown of your household and the people living in it. How many people are living there? What type of home do you live in? Do you have children? A fireplace? A swimming pool? How long have you been living there? What kind of neighborhood do you live in? Most importantly, how much is your home worth?

Paid Options For The Ultra-Creep

For a measly $4.95 per month, potential stalkers, convicted felons, and bitter ex-lovers can get a bit more information on you. That is, if they’re crazy enough to provide this data devouring beast with their credit card information. Fear not, though, logic isn’t among the strongest of traits in the obsessive.

So what information is disclosed when you pay off Spokeo? For starters, your “basic profile” will be expanded upon to disclose your religion, political affiliation, birthday, and spoken languages. Moving on to your “wealth” info, Spokeo provides anyone willing to pay 5 bucks with your estimated income, investments, and mortgage value. What a steal!

Next up, your average psychopath can get expanded information on your “lifestyle indicators.” I can only imagine what kind of info lies behind closed gates.

Last, but certainly not least, a paid-membership to Spokeo provides customers with detailed (“full,” as they describe it) household information. Considering the fact that the standard household info contains the number of people living in your home, whether or not your house has a fireplace, central air/heating, and/or a swimming pool, you can only imagine what information 5 dollars will get you. Blueprints of your home? A live webcam feed of your living room? Probably lots of cool stuff that any web-savvy burglar would like to know.

Oh, and let’s not forget that your basic household information indicates whether or not you have children. It can only be assumed that paying customers will be given a few more details on that aspect of your life. With all of the data Spokeo has racked up, I’d hope that they at least do a criminal background check before giving anyone with internet access and a credit card such information. My guess, however, is that they don’t.

The Accuracy Of Spokeo's Data

Now, you may be curious about the accuracy of the data and personal information that Spokeo has on file. Without question, the data available at this time is far from “perfect.” Keep in mind, though, Spokeo’s new, enhanced version just launched a couple of months back.

In any case, here are some general notes I’ve compiled on the accuracy of Spokeo’s information after a bit of research:

• Address & Phone Number: The addresses and phone numbers they have listed are very accurate, not surprising as they are pulled from the phone book.
• Photos: The photos given are not accurate in the slightest, I have no idea where these (seemingly random) photos are coming from.
• Basic Profile: Info in the basic profile information is, for the most part, accurate. The exception here is estimated home value (no, my home is not worth over a million dollars, unfortunately).
• Lifestyle & Interests: The lifestyle and interests section is somewhat accurate, I’d say around 50 percent of what they have listed on there is correct (yes, I own dogs; no, I don’t enjoy knitting).
• Household: The names and ages of household members are accurate, as well as the home description and length of residence. The estimated home value, again, is off.
• Neighborhood: Containing median income, home value, as well as age, ethnicity, and occupation distribution, the neighborhood information looks accurate in general. Not much to add here.

A Cause For Concern?

Spokeo’s large database of personal information is definitely of concern. While there are several notable inaccuracies in the info they provide at this point, it’s important to recognize that they are just getting started. Without a doubt, Spokeo will do everything in their power to make their information more precise, and more detailed.

Obviously, you don’t want random lurkers, criminals, or creeps of other varieties to have easy access to all of your personal info, but you may not want current or potential employers to have it either. Thanks to Spokeo, with as little information as your name, the outcome of your job interview may be predetermined before even stepping foot in the door. These are just some of the potential problems that a website like Spokeo can cause in your life, if you think about it, the list is nearly endless.

How do you feel about your personal information being neatly compiled and readily available on the internet?

web design Favitt Gives You A Customized Search Engine, Which Google, Yahoo and Bing Can’t

By Chris Peterson

From http://www.smashingapps.com/

Nowadays, Search is the basic mechanism which drives the Internet space. If you surf the internet quite often, you really can’t live without using a search engine. People use search engine in a variety of ways, from searching images, videos, texts, products and so on.

A Search engine like Google, Ask and Yahoo lets you quickly find relevant information, blogs and websites. You can use them to find information on any subject or product, just go to a search engine’s home page, type some text in the search box and hit the return key to get a list of webpages which may contain the information you are looking for.

But what if you need to use multiple search engines? What if you need to search videos in YouTube, search music in Last.fm , search books in Amazon simultaneously? You have to open multiple browser windows or tabs and open all these websites one by one. This can be tiring and confusing as well and for novice Internet users, this is not the most easy interface to deal with.

It would be far more convenient if we can use a single search engine to search multiple sites at once. And above all, the user should be able to do some customizations so that he can choose the features he likes and removes the stuff he doesn’t.

The folks at Faviit have come up with just what you have been looking for ages – a customized search experience so that you can choose the features yourselves.

Faviit – Search Multiple Search Engines From One Page

Faviit lets you perform the same search on multiple search engines from a single page, thus saving you from the frustration of opening multiple browser tabs and typing the same words again and again. When you go to the Faviit.com homepage, you will see the following interface:

Don’t fall for the background image, you can always change it later on.

To perform a search, just enter the keywords in the search box and hit the Search button. You will immediately see the search results load with results from different websites which include Google, YouTube, Bing, Amazon etc. Here is how a search result page looks:

You see those links in the sidebar, just click a site’s name and Favitt will perform a search in that site and show you the results in the same page. Great!

For example, I searched for “iPad” and the Google search result page was shown (see the above screenshot). Then I thought “Ok, now I want to see some videos of the iPad”. Hence I clicked the YouTube link in the sidebar and here is what I got:

You can already feel the difference, don’t you? The video thumbnails are shown in the same page and clicking a link takes you to the video page straight away.

Quite similarly, you can search in news sources ( e.g Google News ) and micro blogging sites like Twitter, Digg or Q and A engines like Yahoo Answers. The interface works quite the same way, each search result being shown on your Faviit home page.

As you might have noticed, the search box consists of five tabs by default but you can always add other sites to the tab list. To search on other sources, simply click the “+” button placed at the right corner of the search box as shown below:

Next, type the words in the search box and click on a search engine to see the results. Another feature which Favitt offers is real time search results. When you do a search and if there are any images, Tweets, YouTube videos or news articles related to the searched keyword – it will appear at the bottom of the search results page.

Found an interesting search result ? Use the share buttons placed at the bottom of search results to share a link with your friends at Facebook, Twitter or other social sites.

Signing up for a Free account with Favitt

Signing up for a free Favitt account has it’s own advantages. First, you can add your favorite sites as bookmarks and these bookmarks appear in the home page for quick browsing.

For example: I am a Facebook addict and when I get some free time, I visit my Facebook profile to see what my friends are up to. Favitt is my homepage and I have got Facebook and other social sites bookmarked as shown below:

So I can access all the sites in one click and do not have to worry about browser bookmarks or manually type the address in the browser address bar.

Another advantage is that you get a personalized page such as http://favitt.com/bob, so just type that address from any computer and you get a personalized engine to start kick start surfing, that too on a customized environment. Signing up is pretty easy and you need just an email address to get it done.

The third advantage that Favitt offers is “backgrounds”. Yes, you can choose a custom background for your customized Favitt homepage. Google, Yahoo and other search engines have boring backgrounds – just a white screen and a text box. Bing shows some images but you don’t have control over the images and they are changed in random order.

With Favitt, you can either upload an image from your computer or grab an image from a publicly accessible web URL. Then you can use that image as the background of your Favitt homepage.

Here is an example:

Choosing a custom background gives a feeling of “being home” when you are surfing from a friends computer or an Internet café. Further, you can adjust the position of the search box and move it to any of the four corners.

The impressive thing regarding the images is that you can upload multiple images from your computer and Favitt will rotate them on a daily basis.

Conclusion

It turns out, Favitt gives you a customized environment for search and it’s a better way to search and surf popular sources like Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, Amazon and the like.

Yes there are advertisements in the search result pages but all the search engines have ads in their SERP’s. From Google to Yahoo, from Digg to Yahoo Answers – no one is an exception. But the advertisements at Favitt are far way from the search results and do not appear obtrusive.

The site is completely free to use so why not try it at least once ?

OffiSync Provides Google Syncing and Searches Inside Office

By Kevin Purdy (Edit, to draft, Top, Slurp)

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Windows: Free Office 2003 & 2007 plug-in OffiSync lets desktop users open documents from, and save to, Google Docs' online servers, but that's nothing amazingly new. A newer Google Search option does, however, integrate powerful image and web searches.

That means that, rather than relying on Microsoft's Clip Art repository, or switching away from Office to search for a usable picture, you can hit the Google Search button on your Office toolbar. Hit that button, click the drop-down box to choose the license you want or need, set parameters for sizes and faces, and then find, click, and quickly insert that picture into your document or presentation. That feature, and OffiSync's basic functionality, are pretty well explained in the video introduction below.

OffiSync is a free download for Windows systems with Microsoft Office 2003 or 2007 installed. What's your favorite Office/web syncing solution? Tell us in the comments.

OffiSync [via Digital Inspiration]