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Google releases experimental flu trends data for Mexico

Miscellaneous, Networking & Internet / By /

Last Nov, we noted that Google was using search data to explore flu trends in the US. With the outbreak of the swine flu (sorry, H1N1 influenza), Google has decided to release new search data to health officials and the public.

This search data shows flu trends for Mexico. Note the word ‘trends’. We should re-emphasize what Google is saying and note that this is useful for modeling what’s happening and studying the situation, but not necessarily an accurate predictor of what’s to happen.

ABC/Disney partners with Hulu to show ABC shows

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Networking & Internet / By /

After months of negotiations, Disney (ABC) has agreed to take a stake in Hulu, NBC’s online video website and thus also air their shows on hulu.com. Fans of Lost Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, and so on can now see full episodes online legally for free with an ad or two thrown in for revenue.

While Greg Sandoval at CNET seems to think this will hurt YouTube, I don’t think that’s about to happen just yet. Sure, this is an important deal as YouTube tries to reform its model to include more industry-approved content, but YouTube is a household name with over 10 times the traffic currently.

Article Recap for the Week Ending Apr 24, 2009

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Gaming & Toys, Gizmo of the Day, Networking & Internet, Portable, Software / By /

Here are some of our notable articles for the past week. First we pondered whether Twitter’s popularity would last. Google News now has a Timeline of Events – nice feature.

We noticed that YouTube were looking to accept full length and legal content, while Fuijitsu have developed some secure new memory sticks. Adobe announced their plans to integrate Flash technology with TVs.

Oracle is picking up where IBM left off, buying out Sun for around $7 billion. That’s a lot of Rubik’s Cube Clocks!

See Timeline of Events on Google News

Networking & Internet, Software / By /

news-timeline-of-eventsI usually have no reason to visit websites to read news as I take it all in via RSS feeds using Netvibes (fantastic reader by the way), but now I have a really cool reason to visit Google News. They’ve launched a new feature called “Timeline of articles” which shows you events and other related news items related to a story chronologically.

Just click on the green link to see all related stories at the bottom of the story.

Article Recap for the Week ending Apr 17, 2009

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Books, Music and Movies, Computers, Gaming & Toys, Gizmo of the Day, Miscellaneous, Networking & Internet, Software / By /

We started off the week by reporting that Amazon’s Kindle Store has surpassed over 260,000 books with an exponential growth rate – at least that’s not a reason not to own one.

We took a look at the available VHS to DVD converters and other analog to digital converters (both hardware and software solutions).

We featured a bunch of Google-related news. The latest offering from Gmail Labs is a tiny addition but welcome one – insert images directly into email. Next are the many uses of Google Latitude and last is the news that Google and universal were partnering up on a music video website called Vevo.

Rounding up, we pleasantly discovered that Facebook is
not only attracting younger members. Rock Band fan? Nowhere to put your instruments? Then take a look at the ‘Rock Box’ Rock Band storage box.

Fun and interesting uses of Google Latitude

Computers, Gizmo of the Day, GPS, Phones / By /

google-latitudeThe bloggers of Google’s mobile division has put together a quick entry on some interesting uses of Google Latitude (that they probably didn’t envision).

Perhaps the best one is of a poor guy tracking down his phone after he forget it in a cab. Phone made it to Boston less than half a day later.

Oh yeah, in case you don’t know what Google Latitude is, it essentially lets your friend see where you are (well your phone) from either your phone or PC, and lets you quickly contact them via SMS, phone, or IM.

Google and Universal to partner on music video website

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Networking & Internet / By /

The Universal Music Group and Google are getting together to start a music video website, called Vevo.

Reports are that they’ll share ad revenues, which implies that they will be monetizing the service via advertising and not charging viewers to watch the videos. However, it’s not clear yet. Chances are that’s how it will roll out, b/c by now, most of these companies understand that there are few things that Web surfers are willing to pong up for.

Universal is the largest of the top 4 record companies and of course, Google owns YouTube and Vevo is but another spin-off of YouTube.

Broughton, UK residents say no to Google StreetView

Miscellaneous, Networking & Internet / By /

The residents of Broughton, a village north of London, decided that they did not want Google’s StreetView team taking any photos of their homes, so they took matters into their own hands. They not only flagged down the Google StreetView driver, and angrily remonstrated with him, they called the police as well.

As much as I (we) all love StreetView, we can certainly appreciate the rights and wishes of the residents not to have their homes appear on a public website. Now if only Google could ammend their policy to include the ability of homeowners to not appear on StreetView in the first place. Right now, you can request to have your home removed from StreetView within a matter of hours.

Gmail rolls out e-mail Autopilot

Computers, Networking & Internet / By /

Autopilot is the latest Gmail Labs product and it’s a doozy. If you are innundated with e-mail, and need some more efficient way to deal with it, including replying, then consider Autopilot.

Simply set some settings like Brevity, and Capitalization and let Autopilot write those e-mails for you. Autopilot looks at your past history to get a feel for your writing style.

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