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Google just announced that the mobile version of Google Product Search can now tell you if a certain product is in stock at nearby stores. Currently, Google is only working with a handful of retailers, including Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn and West Elm, but the company is actively looking for more partners. To see these results, just browse to Google.com on your mobile phone (Android, WebOS or Android), click the "more" link and then "Shopping." The local inventory will be updated in real time and is currently only available for users in the U.S. Sponsor Google obviously thinks that providing the best local results possible is the future for a large number of its services. Now that most modern mobile browsers can forward your location data to web apps, it's become even easier for Google to offer these kinds of local results and Google's initiatives around Google Maps and Place Pages show how serious the company is about local search. For now, with this small number of participating retailers, this isn't necessarily the most useful feature yet. If Google actually manages to get more businesses to use this feature (and/or to expose their inventory through an API), then Google Product Search - which has remained relatively underused - could easily establish itself as the go-to local shopping service. For more details about the mobile version of Google Product Search, have a look at this video (the introduction of Product Search starts about 19 minutes into the presentation) Discuss
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Google's Mobile Product Search Now Shows Real-Time Local Inventory
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Steve Ballmer gave a live webcast today and said that Microsoft is betting its future on the cloud. He illustrated that by saying 70% of Microsoft's 40,000 employees are working on cloud related efforts. By next year, 90% of Microsoft employees will be working on cloud matters. Ballmer spoke at the Allen Center on the University of Washington campus. He outlined five ways Microsoft is embracing cloud computing. Sponsor These are broad, almost vague views on the market. But they do give some guidance to Microsoft's direction: The cloud creates opportunities and responsibilities. The cloud learns and helps you learn, decide and take action. The cloud enhances your social and professional interactions. The cloud wants smarter devices. The cloud drives server advances that drive the cloud. The discussion had its most interesting points in the last 30 minutes of the presentation when the talk turned to Microsoft's emphasis on software; maps and photos; Xbox and Windows Phone 7 Series. At one point, Ballmer said that all software will eventually be in the cloud. Is Microsoft taking risks? This statement would seem to show that perhaps the political base at Microsoft is shifting just a bit from the desktop. The maps, photos and Xbox demonstrations were captivating, showing the semantics of space in a cloud environment and how maps synthesize into 3D images. With Xbox, we were reminded of the Windows Phone 7 interface, with the use of what looks like hubs that are presented as tiles. In the demo, each tile represented a different live TV show that people can watch with their friends in a virtual, animated environment. The Cloud Wants Smart Devices: Not much in this except demonstrating Ballmer's belief in the "Internet of Things," where the cloud helps connect devices to undestand gestures, bringing together voice, touch, speech, all in one. It's the future of the smart device that appears to have had had such an influence on Windows Phone 7 Series. He pointed to the mistakes Microsoft made with Windows Mobile. It was too focused on voice. The future of Windows is in the cloud. That goes for the Windows operating system and Windows Phone 7 Series. A lot of people will say Microsoft is not in the game anymore. That notion can't be supported when you see Microsoft discussing realistic, intelligent views about the market and backing it with how the cloud applies to its products and services. Still, Microsoft is as guilty as anyone for hyping the cloud and further obfuscating what is meant by cloud computing. Really, Steve. Did you actually say "cloud in a box?" Discuss
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Steve Ballmer: Microsoft's Future Is in the Cloud
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Yesterday I asked the question: does China really feel threatened by U.S. social media services such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube? As usual, I got an education in the comments to the post. While it's true that the Chinese government blocks Twitter, Facebook and all of the main American social media sites, several commenters pointed out they are blocked not because of their popularity (because they aren't, in fact, very popular in China), but due to their degree of freedom . In other words, the more open a social media service is, the more likely it will be blocked in China. However, perhaps authoritarian governments shouldn't block social media - it may actually be helpful to them! Sponsor Evgeny Morozov, a Belarus-born researcher and blogger , presented at TED last year on the topic of How the Net aids dictatorships . In his presentation (embedded below), Morozov makes the contrarian argument that the Internet is actually helping authoritarian governments - more so than being a challenge to them. Moronov asserted that governments like China's have "mastered the use of cyberspace for propaganda purposes." Morozov noted that in the Iran Twitter protests of June of 2009, services such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs were actually operational and being used by activists. According to Morozov, this was great for the Iranian government - as it enabled them to "gather open source intelligence." The government could identify how Iranian activists connect to each other, by looking at their Facebook pages or Twitter connections. Kaiser Kuo commented in yesterday's post about the same issue in China: "...it's astonishing how cavalier some critics of the CCP [China Communist Party] are on Twitter, making no effort to disguise their identities, making their network of friends totally transparent (you can use any of a number of Twitter tools to see the extent of interconnectedness, friend overlap, number of @ messages back and forth, etc) and leaving a completely searchable history. Anyone with a serious anti-CCP agenda would be an idiot to use Twitter." Also worth noting: Moronov said in his TED talk that cyber-activism may be offset by what he termed "cyber-hedonism." He claimed that people are becoming passive due to the Internet. He said that we often assume that the Internet is going to be the catalyst of change, but it may actually be "the new opium for the masses." Moronov's theories were challenged in the comments to that TED video. One commenter claimed that "we focus on the obvious totalitarian regimes while our so called democracies use propaganda on a daily basis." Regardless, Moronov raises some very valid points. While the Web promotes freedom of expression, at the same time it enables authoritarian regimes to monitor their citizens and identify troublemakers. Let us know your thoughts on this in the comments. Photo: harrystaab Discuss
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How The Internet Can Impede Democracy
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