One last Google announcement this week – US users can now send queries to the search engine via their mobile phones, and get answers back in about a minute. The service is another one of Google’s beta offerings, and as such is currently free, except for standard network charges – they’re just trying it out to see if people would use it.

Google SMS offers phone directory listings, product prices from Froogle, dictionary definitions … and a calculator. Somewhat strange given that most phones have calculator software in them already, but perhaps useful if it can deal with trigonometric functions. Oh, wait – I have a PDA for that.

Benjamin Ling, product manager for Google SMS describes the service on his blog: “Google SMS is a handy way to, say, get a listing for a nearby restaurant, find the definition of a word, or look up the price of a product, an area code or Zip code. You can even use Google SMS to calculate a tip. If your phone is enabled for text messages, just send your query to this 5-digit US shortcode: 46645. (It corresponds to GOOGL on most phones.) Your query results are sent as text messages, not links. Learn more about using Google SMS on our help page or by sending a text message with the word ‘help’ to 46645.”

SMS Google

On this day, years gone by ...

• Blackberry Storm: Vodafone Get Exclusive - 2008
• Cat GPS Tracking - 2008
• Mobile News: Firefox Mobile Hits Alpha, Blackberry App Centre - 2008
• Spotify Mini Review: (91%): Public Launch of Serious iTunes Competitor - 2008
• McDonalds Offers Free Wi-Fi And Fries - 2007
• Vodafone Scoops Up Spanish And Italian Broadband Firm - 2007
• Wi-Fi Detector Shirt - 2007
• Pioneer First to Support WMA9Pro in High-end AV Amplifier - 2003
• Sanity returns to audio webcasting - 2002
• UK will miss 2005 broadband goal - 2001