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Google Patents World's Simplest Home Page

After a five-and-a-half-year fight, Google and its attorneys have managed to convince federal bureaucrats to bestow a patent on the company's iconic home page. We always thought the page was brain-dead simple, but apparently it's an innovative "graphical user interface."

Google had more luck patenting the design of its search results, which were submitted along with the home page in early 2004 and cleared the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office at the end of 2006. The home page, in contrast, was split off into a separate application, receiving its design patent for a "Graphical user interface for a display screen of a communications terminal" just yesterday. The document (see below) is as minimalist as the interface, containing a single illustration of Google.com, with the company logo depicted in dotted lines to indicate it is not an integral part of the patent.

In other words, subject to how the patent is enforced, Google owns the idea of having a giant search box in the middle of the page, with two big buttons underneath and several small links nearby. Since the time of the patent application in 2004, the company has moved some links, for searching News and Groups and other alternate databases, from directly above the search box to the top of the home page. But Google presumably believes its patent is broad enough to cover the variation.

It's not clear how the company, already under scrutiny from antitrust regulators, will wield the patent against competitors. The Yahoo Search page, depicted at left, bears a striking resemblance to Google.com, while Microsoft's Bing, which features a photo and several headlines, is more distinct. But there mere existence of the patent should create enough uncertainty to scare some worried startups away from Google's stripped down look. So while people may flock to the search engine for its clean, minimalist design, in so doing they are supporting a company that is poised to retard the spread of such an aesthetic online.

Google's shareholders will be more pleased, of course, as will staff. Google diva Marissa Mayer, the overachieving VP of search, added another patent to her trophy case with the decision. Powerful executive; athlete; fashionista; and genius inventor of this totally unprecedented rendering of HTML. Is there anything Mayer can't do?

Article courtesy gawker.com

Google Search Gets Opinionated

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@tan1337 pointed out that a simple search of “Twitter is” on Google spawns suggestions like — Twitter is down, Twitter is over capacity, Twitter is useless; we had to try it out for ourselves. Sure enough, even on the Firefox Google search bar, we got the negative suggestions, as can be seen in the image below.

We tried this out with Facebook as well, considering that it was the biggest competition to Google’s own Orkut. Sure enough, the results were equally negative.

But was this really a bias, or were these actually the most widely used search parameters? There was only one way to find out. We did a search on “Orkut is”, and as seen in the image below, our doubts were cleared.

What started as a shocking discovery, soon turned out to be a fun game. So is there any real bias in Google's search results? Probably not. But to make things a bit entertaining, we leave you with a screenshot of our search on “Google is”.

Microsoft's Bing gains share from Google

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Microsoft's new Bing search engine gained U.S. market share in its first month in operation but still trails dominant rival Google Inc, according to data released on Wednesday.

Bing, launched on June 3 but available to some users a few days earlier, took 8.23 percent of U.S. Web searches in June, up from 7.81 percent for Microsoft search just prior to its rollout and 7.21 percent in April, said Internet data firm StatCounter. Google lost share slightly, dipping to 78.48 percent from 78.72 percent before Bing. Yahoo Inc, the perennial No. 2 in the market, rose to 11.04 percent from 10.99 percent. Bing's share peaked in the first week of June at 9.21 percent, falling away in the middle two weeks before coming back at 8.45 percent in the last week of June. The results may give heart to Microsoft, which is investing heavily in its loss-making online services business and is refusing to cede the market to Google.

"At first sight, a 1 percent increase in market share does not appear to be a huge return on the investment Microsoft has made in Bing but the underlying trend appears positive," StatCounter Chief Executive Adohan Cullen said in a statement. The world's largest software company may yet strike an online search partnership with Yahoo to make itself a credible competitor, but talk of such a deal has quietened down. StatCounter, based in Dublin, says its data are based on 4 billion pageloads per month monitored through a network of websites. Other data research firms such as comScore are not expected to release figures on Bing's share until mid-July.

iPhone 3GS

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The new Apple iPhone 3GS is out, Here you have a comprehensive guide to the iPhone 3GS' new features:

Speed
The "S" stands for "SPEED!" And according to Apple, it is faster launching applications or rendering Web pages.

• The iPhone 3GS has a new processor built-in. Apple claims that it is up to two times faster than the previous generation: Launching messages is 2.1 faster, load the NY Times in Safari: 2.9 times faster. It also consumes less, which has an impact on the improved battery life.

Camera
This is one of the strong points of the iPhone 3GS, according to Apple. They increased the resolution to 3 megapixels, which—judging from the shots they showed-seems much better quality under all conditions.

• 3 Megapixels sensor.
• New camera, with auto focus, auto exposure, and auto white balance.
• You can also tap to focus, changing white balance in the process. That is really neat, if you ask me.
• Special macro and low light modes.
• The camera also supports photo and video geotagging.
• Any application can access all the camera functions now.

• It supports video, 30 frames per second VGA with auto focus, auto white balance, and auto exposure.

• You can trim the video shot just using your finger, then share it via MMS, email, MobileMe and YouTube.

Connectivity
The other part of the "S" is the support for the faster 7.2 Mbps 3G standard, which in theory will deliver data faster to your iPhone.

• Three band UMTS/HSDPA.
• Four band GSM/EDGE.
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g.
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR

Graphics
• The new iPhone 3GS includes new 3D graphics support in hardware. This means faster and more complicated 3D games.
• Same 3.5-inch widescreen multitouch display, but this time it has a fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating. I wonder if it will withstand a full frontal Shake Shack burger attack.

Design

Same design as before, including the glossy finish of the back

• Same size as the old iPhone 3G: 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.48 inches.
• The weight increases a bit: One ounce to 4.8 ounces (135 grams vs 133 grams).
• Greener materials: Arsenic-free glass, BDF-free, Mercury-free LCD.

New special features

It has a magnetometer, which works with a Compass application, third parties, and it is integrated into the new Google maps app, showing your orientation with a small semitransparent cone.

Voice Control
You can now talk with your iPhone, Enterprise-style. You can instruct it to play similar songs to the one you are playing, or call people.
• Nike + support built in.
• Supports accessibility features, like zooming on text, inverting video, and voice over when you touch whatever text is on screen.

Battery life
• One of the more important new features is the increased battery life.
• According to Apple, you will get up to 12 hours of talk time on 2G and 5 on 3G, with a up to 300 hour standby time.
• On 3G, it will deliver 5 hours of internet use.
• On Wi-Fi, Internet goes up to 9 hours.
• Video playback is 10 hours vs 30 hours for audio.

Price and availability
• $199 for 16GB version.
• $299 for 32GB version.
• Available on June 19th.

If you are "a valued AT&T customer," AT&T offers an "early iPhone upgrade with a new 2-yr commitment and an $18 upgrade fee." The price? $399.00 for the 16GB iPhone 3G S and $499.00 for the 32GB iPhone 3G S. It gets worse: For non-qualified customers, including existing AT&T customers who want to upgrade from another phone or replace an iPhone 3G, the price with a new two-year agreement is $499 (8GB), $599 (16GB), or $699 (32GB).

Google Squared | New Search Tool from Google

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Google has launched Google Squared, an experimental search tool that collects facts from the web and presents them in an organized collection, like a spreadsheet.

Google Squared has been designed to be conversational, enabling users to respond to the initial result and get a better answer. If there's another row or column users would like to see, they can add it and Google Squared will automatically attempt to fetch and fill in the relevant facts.

As rows and columns are removed by the user, Google Squared will get a fresh idea of what the user is interested in and suggest new rows and columns to add.

It displays the sources the info was gathered from as well as a list of other possible values that could be investigated. Once users get the square they're happy with, they can save it and come back to it later.

Click here for Google Squared.