Gene Honda Civic Posted February 10, 2005 Share Posted February 10, 2005 Ok the Wal*Mart part was gratutious, but I don't like them.. Google has entered the online maps business. Still in Beta, but the interface kicks all others asses. -- http://maps.google.com/maps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gene Honda Civic Posted February 10, 2005 Author Share Posted February 10, 2005 Google local is also pretty cool (though nothing revolutionary) -- http://local.google.com/lochp though it is good for finding hookers near Schaumburg -- http://local.google.com/local?sc=1&hl=en&q...gle+Search&sl=1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DBAHO Posted February 10, 2005 Share Posted February 10, 2005 I'm assuming it's only maps for America and not for countries like Australia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Showtime Posted February 10, 2005 Share Posted February 10, 2005 QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Feb 10, 2005 -> 08:55 AM) I'm assuming it's only maps for America and not for countries like Australia. You having trouble finding a good hooker, DB? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Controlled Chaos Posted February 10, 2005 Share Posted February 10, 2005 Some what relevant...well it's about google anyway...s*** I try to contribute the best I can. Google better bag 'beta' labels and proclaim new products February 1, 2005 BY ANY IHNATKO The folks at Google have done a lot of good things for our society. Most of these are definitely associated with streamlining the world's access to smut, but look, there've been many other upsides as well. Still, as a respected technology pundit, I feel obligated to say that the Google people are doing the industry a crippling disservice by cheapening the adjective "beta." Ordinarily, beta software lives in a pampered purgatory. It's a pre-release edition: It may be mature, functional, and stable enough that you can actually start showing it off, but it's not yet ready to ship as a "real" product yet. But Google abuses betas the same way that novice chess players abuse the contact rule. They'll release something to the general public that's fully stable and awesomely cool, but they'll keep a finger pressed firmly against the top of it, muttering, "OK, OK, I haven't gone yet, all right? Hang on." The end-result is that they get to put this software out there without taking on any responsibility for supporting it. If it falls short, it doesn't count. It's just a beta, you know? I mean, it's laughable that they're still describing Google News and Google Groups -- the first, a potent news aggregator and the second, the only Usenet message board reader worth your time -- as being beta apps, given that these features have been working and highly stable since, what? Reagan's second term? But at least those two features are available to anybody who clicks at the top of a Google search page. Some of Google's niftiest beta offerings are hidden deep underneath. I use Google's beta text-messaging search service all the time. If you SMS a specialized message to Google ("46645," if you're not fluent in keypad), Google will text-message you some info in reply. Text "comic books, chicago il" and it'll respond with a list of shops in the city. Text "prices toro power curve" while you're at a home center, and a minute later you'll see whether you're about to pay way too much for a snow thrower. "24 ounces in quarts" generates the response ".75 quarts," for heaven's sake. Tune in to www. google.com/sms/ for the full demo. Sometimes, your searches are geographical in nature: You're in Huntsville, Ala., for the first time, say, and you want to visit some of Dixie's legendary sushi bars. Google has upped the ante for its city searches with Local.google.com. This specialized engine is geared toward products and services in a specific region. You're rewarded with a compact list of restaurant names, addresses and phone numbers, embroidered with a road map comparing their locations and tools for narrowing or broadening the search. (It's similar in function to Yahoo's local.yahoo.com service, except you don't have to remember a different five-letter word.) Not all of Google's beta services are so obviously and frabjously useful. Its most recent beta, Google Video, is not only cool. It's very, very, very cool. A majority of television programs are transcripted with invisible closed-captioned text. Someone at Google thought, "Well, why, why don't we capture all that text, and make it searchable?" Result: type "pancakes" into Video.google.com, and you're rewarded with a list of 130 incidences in which that word was spoken (or at least captioned) in a TV show watched by Google's hardware. Clicking on a link brings up an abbreviated transcript, illustrated with screen captures taken at 30-second intervals and accompanied by more information about the show. You can limit your search to specific channels or specific programs. Typing in "channel:fnc liberals" is an amusing way to kill a morning, for instance: "fnc" stands for Fox News Channel. I can't wait to see what happens when they actually include video with this, as Google seems to intend. Lots of lawsuits, I'm guessing. And then there's Google's GMail service (gmail.google.com) which I can't really write about yet even though I've been using it for nearly a year, now. It's a "true" beta: You can't use Google's free mail service unless you've been invited in by an existing user (but try googling "gmail invitations" for some help on that front). Hit labs.google.com for info about other beta services. Even though, as I say, none of them counts, because Google's too chicken to release them for real. OK, maybe shoveling snow for the past 10 days has left me cranky. But I like Google. I want the company and service to succeed. And despite Google's popularity and runaway financial success, it won't become a bona-fide titan of the tech industry until management embraces the ugly, arrogant and unbreakable conviction that any product they create is, by simple virtue of its authorship, ready to release as-is. Andy Ihnatko writes on technical and computer issues for the Sun-Times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonkeyKongerko Posted February 10, 2005 Share Posted February 10, 2005 I liked the old Google Groups better. Now there's Google Groups Beta and the interface sucks. Hopefully their web browser is good if it ever comes out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnB Posted February 10, 2005 Share Posted February 10, 2005 I really like the google mapquest thing alot. W/ mapquest, it was such a b**** to zoom in and out and move. how many more years till google takes over the world? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AssHatSoxFan Posted February 12, 2005 Share Posted February 12, 2005 this thing is awesome im glad i remembered to check this; so much easier than mapquest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MinnesotaSoxFan Posted February 12, 2005 Share Posted February 12, 2005 i like the video.google.com part Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gene Honda Civic Posted February 12, 2005 Author Share Posted February 12, 2005 QUOTE(silver and black @ Feb 12, 2005 -> 12:12 AM) i like the video.google.com part somebody must do a lot of searches for "sybian" and the like.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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