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It’s been a long time coming, but it looks like the Android 1.5 update – better known as ‘Cupcake’ – will be squeezing itself onto T Mobile G1 handsets sometime next month.
G1 owners looking for new toys to play with should overflow with pleasure as the Cupcake OS update comes with the alluring promise of an onscreen keyboard, video recording and Latitude for Google Maps for stalking friends.
They’ve certainly taken their time getting around to it, but BT has finally entered the consumer mobile broadband market with the launch of a new pre-pay service for new and existing customers.
When the Android OS was announced back in November 2007, we eagerly anticipated a stream of hot handsets from manufacturers like HTC, LG, Samsung and Motorola who had signed up to the Open Handset Alliance.
Despite positive reviews about the software and some interesting apps hitting the market, the total number of Android-powered handsets currently available stands at just one, the T-Mobile G1 handset, with the HTC Magic G2 follow up expected to be released next month.
The white coated spods at Google Labs have been tinkering away in the laboratory again, and their new experimental Similar Images feature adds a funky new way to look for related images.
Offering to “refine your image search with visual similarity,” the technology allows you to seek out images using pictures rather than words.
We’re already big fans if the BBC’s iPlayer service, so our bottoms almost squeaked with excitement when we heard that the Beeb is to start offering high definition streams and downloads of selected programmes.
The iPlayer has grown to be a true smash-ban-wallop hit, registering more than 387 million streams or download requests since launching on Christmas Day 2007.
We thought he’d been retired and sent off to an old people’s home to be looked after by kindly searchbots, but Ask has brought back Jeeves in an attempt to claw back some market share from the all dominating Google.
Named after PG Wodehouse’s fact-stuffed, smartarse butler, Jeeves formed the face of Ask’s search engine until 2006 when he was unceremoniously booted off after an interface overhaul.
Looking at videos on YouTube recently we noticed a light bulb sitting on the top right of the video playing back.
As it was the first time we’d used it, we felt duty bound to give it a try.
The UK’s Information Commissioner has ruled that Google’s Street View is not a threat to privacy after mulling over an official appeal by privacy campaigners, Privacy International.
Launched in the UK last month, the nifty add-on to Google Maps and Google Earth lets users view an unfurling panorama of pannable, zoomable street-level photographs of major streets and cities.
Google Translate has long taken over from the BabelFish translator that Alta Vista had way-back in the dim, distant past.
We use it whenever we can’t make sense of block of foreign text – nothing new in that.
Presented with a language we weren’t sure of recently, we selected Swedish as a guess, but the translation didn’t make sense to us.
Vast clouds of backslapping dust were seen rising over Virgin Media’s offices after the company announced a partnership with Google to power its email service.
The new service aims to offer better inbox management and more storage space and is being launched as a pilot for the first 20,000 to sign up today