Google will be rolling out starting today search results that update while you type, “Google Instant”, a feature which they had tested in the wild. The results stream to you, taking what you’ve typed so far as a cue.

According to Google, the feature consists of three gears:

*Instant Results — Google Results now dynamically change as you type, typing in a “w” will get you a 5-day forecast in San Francisco, instantly.

*Predictions — The search attempts to predict exactly what you want, showing the results that it thinks you want in grey text, allowing you to chose.

*Scroll To Search — Using the down arrow key will let you scroll through each of the suggestions, and the results page will update as you go along.

The search button, which users now will be pressing less often, will now take over the function of showing results for the EXACT query.

You can see “Google Instant” in action above.

Stay tuned for updates.

via:TechCrunch

Google has added a "Call phone" function to Gmail that will put Google in closer competition with Internet phone service Skype.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Google announced Wednesday that it will allow users to make phone calls over the Internet through its Gmail service, encroaching on territory that has thus far been dominated by Skype.

The service will appear in Gmail users’ chat windows with a “Call phone” button. When clicked, a telephone dialer will pop up on the screen, and users can place calls using an internal microphone or connected headset.

Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) said calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for at least the rest of 2010. The company said it will roll out the service to its U.S. users over the next several days.

Calls to other countries from the U.S. will be billed at Skype-like rates: Calls to the U.K., France, Germany, China, Japan, for instance, will be offered for 2 cents per minute.

Google also said it plans on making the service available for international users to initiate calls, but it didn’t offer a timeline for when the service would be introduced abroad.

The company said the feature will be useful to make quick calls when a user is on a computer, or for placing calls in areas with poor reception.

“Given that most of us don’t spend all day in front of our computers, we thought, ‘wouldn’t it be nice if you could call people directly on their phones?’” Robin Schriebman, Google software engineer wrote in a company blog post.

Customers who use Google Voice, Google’s free telephone service, will be able to make calls in Gmail using their Google Voice numbers. They will also be able to receive calls made to their Google voice numbers inside Gmail if they choose.

The move positions the company in a battle with Skype. It won’t be easy to overtake Skype, however: In its recent government filing for an initial public offering, Skype said it has 560 million registered users. That compares to nearly 200 million Gmail users, according to Google.

Still, Gmail is becoming a communications hub for its users. Prior to the phone service, Gmail already allowed users to e-mail, instant message and video chat on PCs. Users can also use Gmail to post to social networks through the service’s Google Buzz feature.

Some analysts say the convenience factor could drive some would-be Skype users to Gmail’s new phone service.

“Google Voice in Gmail will gain some traction, simply because it’s there — some people live in Gmail,” said Vanessa Alvarez, analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “It will steal some share from Skype, but Skype has been in this space for a while, so it will be a long time before Google’s share becomes significant.”

As always, the question with any new Google product is how the company will make money on it. Like Skype, Google has an opportunity to sell its service to corporations. Google said a paid version for business customers will be coming out soon.

But Google hasn’t had much success with business customers so far. Its Apps services are slow to be adopted by corporate customers, and the company recently killed its Wave collaborative tool for businesses.

With Voice in Gmail, some experts believe business adoption and revenue from the service will be equally poor.

“Google is taking the easy road of arming their army of fans and users with something just good enough to use — but not necessarily good enough to meet enterprise requirements — and standing back and watching to see how they can shape the market,” said Tom Austin, Google applications analyst at Gartner.

As a result, Austin said he believes Google’s paid revenue stream for the service will be quite small: just $20.3 million per quarter, or 0.3% of Google’s second quarter revenue.

“How important can it be if it’s so insignificant?” Austin asked.

via: PC World
Google CEO Eric Schmidt had some scary things to say about privacy yesterday. In a nutshell, he said there’s an almost incomprehensible amount of data out there about all of us — much of which we’ve generated ourselves via social networks, blogs, and so on — and we are totally unprepared to deal with the implications of that fact.

Schmidt was speaking at the Techonomy confab, currently underway at California’s Lake Tahoe, where large-brained people gather to talk about how technology and the economy intersect.

[ See also: Whom do you fear: Apple, Google, Microsoft, or God? ]

Marshall Kirkpatrick of Read Write Web distilled the highlights:

“There was 5 exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003,” Schmidt said, “but that much information is now created every 2 days, and the pace is increasing…People aren’t ready for the technology revolution that’s going to happen to them….”

“If I look at enough of your messaging and your location, and use Artificial Intelligence,” Schmidt said, “we can predict where you are going to go.”

“Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are. You think you don’t have 14 photos of yourself on the internet? You’ve got Facebook photos! People will find it’s very useful to have devices that remember what you want to do, because you forgot…But society isn’t ready for questions that will be raised as result of user-generated content.”

Are visions of 2001′s HAL 9000 or maybe The Terminator’s SkyNet dancing in your head yet? How about Minority Report or Enemy of the State?

In those movies, it was malevolent machines or government agencies that played the boogieman. In Schmidt’s scenario, the source of evil is a lot murkier.

Schmidt wasn’t really trying to draw disaster scenarios. He noted that a lot of positive benefits can come from the information explosion, and he’s right. Personally, if not for the Internet, I might be in another line of work. I’d almost certainly live in another city. Being able to access vast amounts of data without lifting my butt from this ergonomic chair has transformed my life in dozens of ways, as I’m sure it has tranformed others’.

Of course, Google is in the business of monetizing that data, for which it seems to possess an insatiable appetite. And sometimes it screws up big time. Schmidt didn’t really talk about that.

The good side of all this data: instant information about virtually anything. The dark side? Vast potential for personal profiling by your employer, your insurer, and The Man.

The fact is, your participation in a political forum might cause someone to not hire you. Your comments to a blog post about a particular medical condition may inspire an insurer to decline coverage. The Web sites you visit, the books you download and the movies you stream could get you on a watchlist — or worse.

Sound like a paranoid fantasy? It’s happened before, in different places and times, in different ways. From now on, though, it will happen via the Net. The stunning profusion of data out there — and Google’s very efficient methods for collecting and organizing that data — make it all possible.

Schmidt seems like a decent enough guy (though the resemblance to Howdy Doody is a bit unnerving). I don’t think he or his company are evil; but I do believe that like most corporations — and people, for that matter — Google has its own best interests at heart. Those interests lie in keeping Schmidt’s search engine stoked with more and more data.

He’s right, though. We’re unprepared. And when the data tsunami hits, all of us will get soaked. Hope you brought your all-weather gear.

When not abusing weather metaphors, ITworld TY4NS blogger Dan Tynan keeps the snark engine stoked at eSarcasm (Geek Humor Gone Wild). Follow him on Twitter:@tynan_on_tech.

For years, Internet advocates have warned of the doomsday scenario that will play out on Monday: Google and Verizon will announce a deal that the New York Times reports “could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege.”

The deal marks the beginning of the end of the Internet as you know it. Since its beginnings, the Net was a level playing field that allowed all content to move at the same speed, whether it’s ABC News or your uncle’s video blog. That’s all about to change, and the result couldn’t be more bleak for the future of the Internet, for television, radio and independent voices.

How did this happen? We have a Federal Communications Commission that has been denied authority by the courts to police the activities of Internet service providers like Verizon and Comcast. All because of a bad decision by the Bush-era FCC. We have a pro-industry FCC Chairman who is terrified of making a decision, conducting back room dealmaking, and willing to sit on his hands rather than reassert his agency’s authority. We have a president who promised to “take a back seat to no one on Net Neutrality” yet remains silent. We have a congress that is nearly completely captured by industry. Yes, more than half of the US congress will do pretty much whatever the phone and cable companies ask them to. Add the clout of Google, and you have near-complete control of Capitol Hill.

A non-neutral Internet means that companies like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Google can turn the Net into cable TV and pick winners and losers online. A problem just for Internet geeks? You wish. All video, radio, phone and other services will soon be delivered through an Internet connection. Ending Net Neutrality would end the revolutionary potential that any website can act as a television or radio network. It would spell the end of our opportunity to wrest access and distribution of media content away from the handful of massive media corporations that currently control the television and radio dial.

So the Google-Verizon deal can be summed up as this: “FCC, you have no authority over us and you’re not going to do anything about it. Congress, we own you, and we’ll get whatever legislation we want. And American people, you can’t stop us.

This Google-Verizon deal, this industry-captured FCC, and the way this is playing out is akin to the largest banks and the largest hedge funds writing the regulatory policy on derivative trading without any oversight or input from the public, and having it rubber stamped by the SEC. It’s like BP and Halliburton ironing out the rules for offshore oil drilling with no public input, and having MMS sign off.

Fortunately, while they are outnumbered, there are several powerful Net Neutrality champions on Capitol Hill, like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Henry Waxman, Jay Rockefeller, Ed Markey, Jay Inslee and many others. But they will not be able to turn this tide unless they have massive, visible support from every American who uses the Internet — whether it’s for news, email, shopping, Facebook, Twitter — whatever. So stop what you’re doing and tell them you’re not letting the Internet go the way of Big Oil and Big Banks. The future of the Internet, and your access to information depends on it.

Author’s note: Notice how a company can change their tune in the name of profitmaking. From Google in 2006: “Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can’t pay.”

Google announced on Thursday that it is acquiring flight information software company ITA for $700 million in cash. Based in Cambridge, ITA mines flight data and presents it in a polished form suitable for online viewing. Google will add to its repertoire of services by integrating this flight data into its online search engine. Google also states that it will honor all service agreements with ITA’s current customers which include Kayak, Orbitz, and Bing. Despite this assurance of openness, Google now owns a big chunk of the online travel business, so expect the deal to get a close look from regulators.

Read

Last night we broke the story that Google would be teaming with a number of well known artists to launch a promotion for its Music Onebox search, which was releasedlast week. Turns out, it’s launching a bit sooner than we thought: beginning tonight a number of well known artists will be offering exclusive songs and free downloads through Google’s Music search. To get the freebies and exclusives, simply run a Google query for the artist’s name (the album name works too in some cases).

One clarification: while these songs are being presented and promoted on Google, they’ll also be available on the site that’s actually streaming the songs — be it MySpace or Lala. In MySpace’s case the songs could also be potentially be surfaced on other search engines, though it sounds like artists will be asking their fans to search for them on Google as part of the promotion.

Included among artists giving away free MP3s as part of the promotion are:
Tim McGraw
Phoenix
Major Lazer
Mos Def
Zee Avi

And the following exclusives are being showcased on Google as well:

AFI – “Torch Song (Demo From Crash Love Sessions)”
– Search on Google for “AFI”

Arctic Monkeys – “Catapult”
– Search on Google for “Arctic Monkeys”

Bon Jovi – “We Weren’t Born To Follow [Acoustic Version] (Recorded Live From Inside The Actor’s Studio)”
Dead by Sunrise – “Let Down [Live]”
Green Day – “Know Your Enemy [Live In Tokyo]”
Kings of Leon – “Crawl (Miike Snow Remix)”
Lady Gaga – “Paparazzi (David Aude Remix)”
Linkin Park – “New Divide [Live]”
Luke Bryan – “Better Than My Heart”
Norah Jones – “Young Blood”
One Republic – “All The Right Moves (Live)”
Paramore – “Where The Lines Overlap [Acoustic Version]”
Snoop Dogg – “Upside Down (Featuring Nipsey Hussle)”
The Fray – “Be The One (Demo Version)”
Trey Songz – ” LOL [feat. Gucci Mane & Soulja Boy Tell 'Em] [Logan deGaulle Remix]”
Weezer – “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To (Live In Kansas City)”
Zac Brown Band – “Chicken Fried [Live From Bonnaroo]”

Four ways this free service can put advanced telephony features within reach

by Tony Bradley, PC World

Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from the Biz Feed blog at PCWorld.com.

Google Voice has been the subject of controversy for all the wrong reasons since its availability was expanded earlier this year. Even with limited availability, the service has reached almost 1.5 million users, and half of them reportedly use it daily.

The reason for its popularity isn’t hard to see. Google Voice provides a plethora of call handling features at a price that can’t be beat: free. For small and medium businesses, Google Voice is an opportunity to use advanced call management features typically reserved for expensive voice solutions in larger enterprises.

Large companies have IP-PBX’s and dedicated voice administrators to manage it, or they have made the move to unified communications and have a voice environment built around Microsoft or Cisco or some other unified communications vendor. Small and medium businesses don’t have the financial or personnel resources for those solutions though. Let’s look at how smaller businesses can put Google Voice to work:

1. Simultaneous Ring
Google Voice allows you to have an incoming call to the Google Voice number simultaneously ring on multiple phones. On an individual basis, calls could ring an office desk phone and a mobile phone at the same time to ensure important calls reach you no matter where you are.

Businesses can put this feature to use though as a form of departmental call routing. You can use a Google Voice number for a department, such as sales, or customer service, and have the Google Voice number simultaneously ring the desk phones of all of the people in the department so that customers get an efficient response.

2. Custom Call Greeting and Routing
You can set up Groups in Google Voice and establish unique call management options for each group. A sales department can use this function to set up different groups for each salesperson. Incoming calls that are associated with a sales person’s group can be routed to go only to the designated user’s desk and mobile phone, and if the call goes to voicemail it can have a custom message from the individual sales person rather than a generic greeting.

Using a Google Voice number in this way, all customers can dial one number to reach the sales department, but existing customers will be routed to their designated sales person, while calls from new and potential customers would be managed using the default settings to simultaneously ring the whole department.

3. Voicemail by E-mail
When a new voicemail is received in Google Voice can send the voicemail to an e-mail address and/or transcribe the audio into the text of an e-mail message. You can configure Google Voice to deliver the voicemail messages to an e-mail group or distribution list address so that all of the members of the department will receive the voicemail.

Having the voicemail sent to email at all will help ensure it is not overlooked entirely, and distributing the message to a group can improve the efficiency with which the department responds to customer inquiries and lead to significantly higher customer satisfaction.

4. Call Screening
You can configure Google Voice to announce incoming calls to you before you decide whether or not you want to accept the call. When the phone rings and you answer you are not connected immediately with the caller. Google Voice will identify the source of the call at which point you can choose whether to accept it or pass it to voicemail.

This function can be used by an individual or a team to reduce wasted time and improve productivity. If you are in the middle of a project, important calls can still be taken, while other calls can be sent to voicemail so that you can stay focused on more productive tasks.

Google recently announced a new option, a sort of Google Voice Lite, that allows you to use some Google Voice features while maintaining your existing number, but the functions I listed above require the standard Google Voice account. Google Voice is not available to the general public just yet, but if you know a friend or a friend that has Google Voice you might be able to get an invite.

Tony Bradley is an information security and unified communications expert with more than a decade of enterprise IT experience. He tweets as @PCSecurityNews and provides tips, advice and reviews on information security and unified communications technologies on his site at tonybradley.com.

Get lost? Do you? Well, yet another bright young designer from the U.K is developing a system that will have tag and name exactly what your staring at. Google Vision is a conceptual product developed by Callum Peden, for the worlds favorite search engine. The product provides the user with a truly unique information hub by combining GPS, OLED technology and advanced image recognition in the form of a retractable screen device.
The Global Positioning System will see the end of wondering the streets asking for directions and the small roller ball will allow for easy navigation of the flexible screen. Brilliant for identifying landmarks whilst on holidays, Google vision acts as  a personal; tour guide.

As well as this, advanced image recognition will mean Google Vision can target well known landmarks. Then using the increased coverage of wireless internet, provide the user with information on their surroundings wherever they may be.