The Importance of Connectivity

In today's increasingly online world the quality (or existence) of your connectivity options are an amenity as important to you as... a.) nearby bus stops/tube stations? b.) local shops? With a high speed internet connection and excellent 3G mobile phone reception would you mind walking further to get a paper in the morning (no wait, don't you get your news online?!). So your Internet connectivity hunger might lead you into cafe's with wi-fi or to choose a home with fibre optic broadband available. The question is, where does this stop? It's been reported today that the London Cycle Hire Docking Stations are increasing the acceptable rent payments in the surrounding areas as they are being considered by estate agents as a local amenity like tube stations or bus stops.

Would someone base their choice of home on mobile reception? Are areas of strong reception going to cost more to buy or rent?  I'm sure that connectivity will continue to have an increasing effect on our decisions. It wouldn't be possible for a shop to open up without a phone line for card payments or an office to not have an email system. The era of digital connectivity being a commodity, like electricity and water, is upon us.

Google Instant Search

As widely rumoured and, almost, suggested by the latest Google Doodle with a colour as you type interactivity, Google have announced Google Instant. The Google Instant service will be coming this autumn. To access Google Instant you will need to be signed into google.com with a Google Account. This picture sums up Google's anticipated results, and highlights the excitement and hype caused about the Google Doodle's in the past few days.

The best description of this service is taken straight from the Google press release and their YouTube video:

Instant Results: Start typing and results appear right before your eyes. Until now, you had to type a full search term, hit return, and hope for the right results. Now results appear instantly as you type, helping you see where you're headed, every step of the way.

Google Doodle Mystery Continues

After yesterday's interactive Google logo the mystery continues with today's logo. Today the Google logo starts greyed out and then gets coloured in as you type. There is some speculation online that this hints towards a search as you type feature coming soon.

Interactive Google Doodle

Visitors to Google's homepage are today faced with an unusual, and seemingly without reason (EDIT: For Google's 12th birthday?), interactive Google doodle. The logo is made up of coloured circles which move away from your cursor and respond to the movement of the browser window.

After a quick movement from the mouse...

The Guardian has a more in depth feature: Click Here.

Microsoft Announce Internet Explorer 9

Microsoft have announced the release date of Internet Explorer 9: 15th September 2010. Internet Explorer 8 continues to hold a large market share of users (who on the whole care little about web browsers and tend to stick to the Windows default) and Microsoft want to build on this with the release of IE9. They claim it will bring a richer and more immersive webbrowsing experience on their countdown page Beauty of the Web. IE9 will include support for HTML 5, although it would appear that Internet Explorer is playing catchup compared to the other major web browsers.

Apple unleash new iPods

Apple announced a new range of iPod's in their recent iPod event. The new iPods include:

• iPod Touch with Facetime and Retina display (like the iPhone 4)
• iPod Nano with multitouch interface (similar to the iPhone)
• iPod Shuffle with buttons again (much better for control)
• And the iPod Classic with a huge 160GB storage capacity

Courtesy of Apple Inc.

They have also released iTunes 10.  This includes a new social networking element called Ping. It allows you to follow your friends and musicians and see what other people are listening to, rating or reviewing. The new version of iTunes also supports third party hardware that will be compatible with their remote speaker system currently only used by the Airport Express. It will be inbuilt in some forthcoming stereo's from Denon and JBL. Click Here for more information. The iTunes 10 logo moves away from the classic iTunes symbol of a musical note in front of a CD, we really have left the age of the CD.

They also announced a new Apple TV model. The new model moves away from the Mac Mini looks with a small sleek black glossy case. It features HDMI output and the ability to rent HD films from iTunes via the inbuilt Wi-Fi and your existing home Wi-Fi network.

Gmail Priority Inbox Beta

Google have added a new beta feature to their web mail system - Priority Inbox. It sorts out the important emails from the endless adverts and updates from companies. Gmail users can try it out now as it's being rolled out this week. Look to the top right of the page for a link to activate it. The system gets better with time and use so it's probably worth trying out for a few weeks before commenting on how good it is. This Google video explains all...



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