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Google announces Google Instant search, available now for desktop, mobile this fall
We're reporting live from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where Google's just taken the wraps off its latest software product. The announcement itself is taking its time right now, with background facts like Google recently crossing the one billion users a week milestone, but the Google Instant service has been activated and you can see details about its immediate result delivery at the source below. Basically, the Goog no longer waits for you to hit Enter while searching and starts updating its results page Instantly as you type. Google describes it as a fundamental shift in seach and you can find more details along with its warm and fuzzy video introduction after the break.%Gallery-101726%%Gallery-101727%
Microsoft adds speech recognition to Live Search
If your hands and fingers are beat up from too much typing on your Windows Mobile piece, we may (or may not) have just the solution for you. Available now, Microsoft has released an updated version of Live Search for both Windows Mobile 5 and 6 that incorporates speech recognition for business listings and locations. Other gee-whiz features include searches for gas prices, hours of operations for business, and even being able to connect to your GPS for location-based stuff.
Sprint, Microsoft roll out location-based Live Search
It looks like Sprint users now have a few more search options at their disposal, with the carrier and Microsoft announcing today that Live Search will now automatically take the users' location into consideration. Apparently, the service makes use of cell-tower triangulation, and not GPS, to determine the users location, making it somewhat less accurate but far more widely available. What's more, the pair also announced a new voice search feature that'll work with five of Sprint's high end phones, including the Samsung a900 and a920, the Motorola Razr, the Sanyo 840 and the LG 550. As you can probably guess, it will let you speak search terms instead of typing them in, with it also giving you the option to press a button to call the business you're searching for. While Sprint is getting all Microsoft's attention at the moment, the company is quick to point out that the service is not exclusive, and "could become available via other operators in the future."[Image courtesy of Search Engine Land]
Voice searching coming to Windows Mobile?
While Microsoft sure has its hands full with that other search engine, it looks like the mobile flavor of Windows could be getting a welcomed extra. Apparently, a questionably obtained CAB file has been acquired that enables users to vocally search for terms on Live Search for Mobile, and better yet, to input text via your voice "on any field that supports text entry." Of course, the application is indeed stuck in beta, which practically guarantees that you'll hit a few bugs if you load this up, but if you've got nothing to lose or you just can't resist a good challenge, be sure to give it a whirl and let us know how it goes.[Via BoyGeniusReport]
Widget Watch: Microsoft Dashboard Widget?
"Dashboard widgets by Microsoft, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria" --P. Venkman, Ghostbusters Behold what appears to be a Microsoft Live Search Dashboard widget, as spotted by TUAW reader Florian on Nik Fletcher's blog. TUAW decided to check this out. We downloaded a copy of the widget from the Apple website, opened it up and looked inside. And to us, at least, it looks like this is not actually produced by Microsoft. Our best guess? A French Mac user put this thing together. The code is littered with comments in French, debug statements, and third party subroutines. There's nothing in there that indicates this was an actual Microsoft product. So how is it as a widget? It's fine if LiveSearch is your thing.
Microsoft hooks up Nokia phones with Live Search
We, of course, can't speak for Yahoo -- but if we had to guess, we'd imagine they're at least a little bit perturbed at Nokia right about now. Just under two weeks after announcing a partnership with the search company to include Yahoo! Search in its Mobile Search application, Nokia's now announced a similar deal with Microsoft, which'll see Windows Live Search find a home alongside Yahoo in the mobile search platform. Them's the breaks of the cut-throat search biz, we guess. Hard feelings aside, if you choose the Live Search route you'll get stock quotes, movie times, and results from Encarta Instant Answers in addition to search results in 14 languages -- the idea being that you can access all that info faster than you could using a web browser. Look for it come pre-loaded on Nokia Nseries handhelds, with a free download already available from Nokia's website for compatible Nokia S60 devices.[Via Slashphone]
