Neomeme

I bet you use Google to search the Internet multiple times every day. Good old reliable Google, which has not changed it main user interface in years. You would think that all of the extremely creative Google engineers would spend some time designing exciting Web 2.0-ish new interfaces for Google, and at the very least posting them in Google Labs for us early adopters to play with. Alas, no such luck. Google Labs has plenty of interesting projects, but no additional features for the core search product. Oh, and by the way, have you heard of this new search engine called SearchMash? It looks pretty advanced, chock-full of Ajax, highlighting Wikipedia results, keyword suggestions and more. And the search results are pretty good, too. What is this wonderful new search engine? A stealth startup? A private venture? No,SearchMash is actually a Google research project so secretive it is not even listed in Google Labs. Read more »

At the turn of the 21st century, Internet Appliances, crippled computers to be used exclusively for web surfing were all the rage. They were supposed to appeal to women and old people and bring ubiquitous computing into the kitchen and the living room. Internet appliances failed miserably, because nobody wanted an underpowered computer that could only function for one single task. The market for these machines was composed of geeks, hackers, and early adopters, people who were much more likely to buy a full PC anyway, and, as computers became cheaper and more powerful, the concept of the appliance died a quiet death.

But now, in 2006, the appliance is making a comeback. In fact, appliance computers have stealthily installed themselves in millions of homes, hiding under TVs. I am talking, of course, about game consoles. Think about it- a modern game console like the Xbox 360 PS3 or Wii is a crippled computer, adapted for a single purpose- playing games. It has a hard drive, processor, memory, is Internet-connected, etc. The difference from the appliances of old, of course, is that game consoles have a killer app- the games. Any old computer can browse the Internet, but only Xbox 360 can play Gears of War. The game console, unlike a PC, remains crippled by design, and severely limited in its potential. Nonetheless, it does one task, and does it well.

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