With the launch of Bing this week, a new search service arrived to take on Google. And, unlike other small challengers, since Bing is from Microsoft, it actually has the potential to stick around long enough to make some inroads on Google.
But how is Bing as a search engine. Since it launched on Monday, I've been using Bing heavily for nearly all of my Internet search needs. And so far, I like much of what Microsoft is doing here.
In general, Bing is more attractive than Google and has a lot of nice interactive touches. Once you've entered a search, the results page in Bing provides a variety of information.
The release this week of the Wolfram|Alpha computational knowledge engine has gotten a lot of attention from the media and Web pundits, and, strangely, lots of these people have gotten Wolfram|Alpha completely wrong.
The most common thing that people say about Wolfram|Alpha is that it is a potential competitor to Google. But Wolfram|Alpha is no more of a competitor to Google than their core Mathematica application is (or for that matter than your corporate sales database is).
First off, Wolfram|Alpha doesn't search the Web. It searches a controlled knowledge database that Wolfram maintains and is constantly updating. And most of the ways that people would use Wolfram|Alpha are different from how one would use a search engine like Google. But I guess because Wolfram|Alpha looks like a search site, some people just can't get over that.
With mergers and company failures regularly in the news, the amount of healthy competition in the technology world is clearly decreasing. This, of course, means that more companies will gain a monopoly in their markets.
This got me thinking about monopolies in general and the companies that are typically seen as monopolists in the technology arena. Just which tech companies are true monopolists, and which ones fall short of being a monopoly?
My dictionary defines a monopoly as "exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of suppy, or concerted action, exclusive possession or control, a commodity controlled by on party, one that has a monopoly".
The second day of Demo got off to a much better start than Day 1, with a couple of promising semantic Web applications starting off the vendor presentations.
While in some ways 2008 has been an exciting and historic year, in other ways it has been a year that many people would like to forget, especially those who have seen their businesses, job prospects and retirement savings shrink or disappear altogether.
But when it comes to emerging technologies, 2008 wasn't just a good year, it was a very good year. The past year saw the rise of many new exciting products and technologies and also saw renewed growth in some areas that had become stale.
Best of all, these technologies of 2008 aren't just limited to this year. Many of them are the building blocks that will be used to create and grow the technologies that will be important in 2009.
Click here to watch the video Here's my final installment from DEMOfall 08. In this video we wrap up some of the sights and sounds of the recent DEMOfall 08 conference.
Will some of the participants turn out to be the next big companies of tomorrow? You never know. But many at least are pushing the envelope in their ideas for the future of technology. To name a few, Intelius launched isearch, Plastic Logic introduced a new plastic reader, and Maverick Mobile Solutions created software to protect the data on your cell phone, including encryption, the ability to wipe data, and also a tracking device to find your mobile phone if it gets stolen.
Google recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. With this milestone, it seemed like a good time to look back at the growth of this remarkable company and how it has affected--and will affect--the Internet.
Google's back story is pretty well known in technology circles. Two grad students at Stanford came up with a better way to do Web searches and started a company that has turned into the behemoth we know now.
But, to me, some of the most interesting things about Google are in how the company has operated and how it continues to operate. In many ways, Google is a unique beast--a company unlike any that we have ever seen before. But, in other ways, it is just like every other company that has grown to dominate a market.
On the last day of DEMOfall 08 a company called Intelius showed off a new search engine called iSearch. iSearch makes it possible to find people, such as former colleagues or flames, without having lots of details at your command. Of course, these features can be used to find data about oneself as much as finding others.
In the DEMOfall pavilion I spoke to Melissa Korb of Intelius about the iSearch tool.
Web browsers aren't just about surfing the Web anymore. With Microsoft, Mozilla and Google (!) introducing new browsers, the browser may just be more important than ever before. In this report I look at the current generation of Web browsers and what it means for the future of the Web and IT. Also, look below for links to reviews of all the latest Web browsers.
Just a few short years ago, it was hard to imagine a more stagnant product category than Web browsers.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 and older versions of IE dominated the market with more than 95 percent of users. And, at the time, Microsoft had no plans to improve on its browsers, saying there would be no IE 7 until the launch of "Longhorn." Microsoft officials put more water on the browser flames by saying that browsers would go away as stand-alone applications, and that most Web activity would be handled by applications and operating systems.
Not everyone was convinced. People who were interested in an open and vibrant Web were pinning their hopes on the release of Firefox 1.0. These hopes weren't misplaced, as Firefox stole market share from IE and forced Microsoft to change course on its Web browser plans.
Fast-forward to today, and it's hard to imagine a more vibrant and more important technology sector than Web browsers. In the minds of many observers, the new browser wars are quickly replacing the old operating system wars in terms of determining how people and businesses will use computers, both on the Web and off.
REVIEW: Based on initial tests, Google Chrome looks to be an exciting and impressive new entry into the Web browser field.
Today a new player enters the browser wars and it represents the biggest change to the field since the day that Microsoft decided to take on Netscape. With the surprise launch of the beta of Google Chrome, the Web and search giant has already changed the current browser landscape and is poised to potentially change the future of the Web.
And before I go any further I just want to clarify that I've only had a short few hours with the new Google Web browser, and subsequent and sustained use may reveal issues that would change my view of the browser.
But right now, based on this short amount of testing, Google Chrome may just be the most impressive new Web browser that I have ever seen. While there are still a few beta hiccups, much of the experience of using Google Chrome just feels like the way that a browser should work.
Web browsers aren't just about surfing the Web anymore. With Microsoft, Mozilla and Google (!) introducing new browsers, the browser may just be more important than ever before. In this report I look at the current generation of Web browsers and what it means for the future of the Web and IT. Also, look below for links to reviews of all the latest Web browsers.
