Well, they’re not the only ones, but they’re definitely the ones to watch. Or.. Talk to?
Google has been working on (among many other projects) searching their insanely large libraries using spoken words. Their iPhone app will take speech queries and return results for you. Find out more about speech-driven iPhone searches with google.
I haven’t seen it show up yet as an update on my iPhone, but the NY Times is expecting it any minute now.
The beta is to start with Windows-only, but there’s a Mac and Linux version in the works as well. Word is that it’s Open Source, stable, fast, etc. etc. etc.
Obviously, it will integrate well with the web apps that Google has been making available to its account-holders, but one hopes that this isn’t the start of another standards-flouting browser war.
Read the details about Google’s new browser (In a comic, no less) from the source.
The internet is beyond a fad. Of that, there’s no doubt. It’s a powerful tool, and it all centers around communication. The ease of using the medium isn’t always up to par, however, and so it’s only the geeks that seem to be on the ball when it comes to the sharing, storing, comparing and broadcasting.
With the advent of blogs, social networks like facebook, mashup sites, and instant notification concepts like RSS, that’s all changing.
There’s a great project in the works that takes it a step further, putting all of these tools at your fingertips, and making it easy to use everyday language, too.
Take a brief look at Ubiquity for Firefox in this great intro video by Aza Raskin, and then, take a deeper look, if you like.