Get language packages from Google Translate on your Android mobile device. Can look up word, speak, write, take a photo and have Google translate. Handles 64 languages. Canadian Press prepared this video – Amazing Google Translate features you may not know about Add to … (Globe and Mail, May 5)
Is search changing? Claire Cain Miller points out some trends in this New York Times article — As Web Search Goes Mobile, Competitors Chip at Google’s Lead (Apr 3)
More searches are being run on mobile devices through apps and using specific sites for places to eat or things to buy or places to travel to.
No longer do consumers want to search the Web like the index of a book — finding links at which a particular keyword appears. They expect new kinds of customized search, like that on topical sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor or Amazon, which are chipping away at Google’s hold. Google and its competitors are trying to develop the knowledge and comprehension to answer specific queries, not just point users in the right direction.
Hence the drive to deliver answers – not links to pages that might have answers.
Of interest:
Google has introduced a new note keeper and named it Keep. It’s an Android App and is available on the Web and will likely integrate with everything Google in time. Casey Newton at CNet has some how-to advice here – Get started with Google Keep.
Some may remember that Google had a Notebook application that it closed in 2009 (though I guess it lingered for a while). Really odd that Google would introduce a new application right after enraging so many users by closing Google Reader.
Keep will be pushing into Evernote’s market of note taking users.
The service will feel familiar to users of Evernote, the note-taking service and self-described “external brain” that has more than 45 million registered users. (Business Insider wasted no time in labeling Keep an “Evernote killer.”) Evernote also focuses on making it easy to create and search notes; it has brought its service to an impressive number of platforms.
More articles everywhere but this one from Time magazine by Jared Newman describes the functions supported — Google Keep: Worth Trying, with Caution
Firefox excels in providing searchers tools for search. These articles show how to set up the tools.
Firefox Search Bar
Desktop:
Android:
These free travel apps for your phone or laptop will help you get around airports, find a flight, get oriented to a city — Today’s Best Travel Apps, and They’re All Free — Bloomberg Businessweek (Jan 31) — has tech accessories too.
CEO Marissa Mayer sees Yahoo’s future tied to helping people with their daily needs (she said “habits”) for information. At Davos, she said: “”I think that there’s a real opportunity to help guide people’s daily habits in terms of what content they read. That is something that we are really working on. All of these daily habits–news, sports, games, finance, search, mail, answers, groups–these are all things we have been underinvested in. A little love will go a long way.”
Yahoo has the content but needs to get onto the mobile devices and into the social networks – both of which can be done through partnerships. Personalization will be key in managing the amount of information.
Read excerpts of the transcript and watch 30 minute video at Marissa Mayer Lays Out Her Vision. (Business Insider, Jan 25).
If I had a tablet I would try the new search interface from Blekko called Izik (pronounced Eye-zik).
Press release said this,
“Because of the limitations on typing on a tablet, combined with the search-and-explore mentality of tablet searchers, tablet queries tend to be short and the paradigm of 10 blue links as search results doesn’t make sense on these devices,” said Rich Skrenta, CEO of blekko. “With izik, we can use our state of the art technology to dynamically create context for any query in the results themselves, and use a tablet-friendly design to surface them in a fun and easily-digestible manner.“
Watch the demo – http://vimeo.com/56728379
Greg Sterling provides specifications and screenshots in Blekko Launches New Tablet Search Engine “Izik”, Search Engine Land (Jan 4).
Browsers don’t have an easy time of it. For a time in the past year the browser was the entry point to universal, web or cloud based software. Lately there has been a lively competition among the browsers that has benefited the user. But Stephen Shankland in Browsers: Top 5 events from 2012 (CNet, Dec 22) sees challenges to browser choice from iPhones and tablets – or, we should say, particular companies that strive to create an unassailable presence. Their names? Facebook with its native apps and move away from HTML5, Microsoft and its WinRT interface that limits third party software. Chromebooks is another exclusive leaning operation.
Think about this when you buy new mobile devices. There may not be any browser choice and you may be limited in what you can do.
8 Ways to Search on Windows 8: The Travel App, Bing (Nov 30)
Those lucky Surface tablet users can use the new Travel App in Windows 8.
“The Travel App brings together everything you need to plan your next trip including in-depth articles, attraction information, maps, weather conditions, breathtaking images, immersive 360 degree panoramas, and much more.”
Microsoft gets the fares from Kayak.
Watch the video to see the panorama feature – a “ton of fun”.
Windows 8 also has apps for sports, finance, maps – in fact there are 8 ways. First post introducing this was titled – Start and Search Charm.
“Google Now” Moving Well Beyond Search, Becoming Mobile Assistant, Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land (Nov 5)
Mobile search environment is changing rapidly. Greg Sterling writes, “On Android handsets in particular the Google “search experience” is evolving into something that extends well beyond what we think of as search.”
“Google Voice Search + Google Now together with Siri hold profound implications for the future of “mobile search.” Siri and, increasingly, Google Voice Search + Google Now are conditioning mobile users to interact with smartphones in very different ways than how people have historically searched on the PC. Mobile or virtual assistant is the new metaphor.”