Post the Twitter-based revolution in real-time data mining and serving for trending topics and events, Foursquare is now trying to sell it’s own services as something that shows the trending locations, in real-time. Foursquare co-founder David Crowley gave and exclusive interview to The Telegraph and said that they have approached all players in the search market, including the big three — Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft (Bing!).

Once the report about FourSquare’s new development was published, the search companies were contacted for their statement. Even though none of them could deny that the talks were happening, the companies refused to make any comments regarding the progress and/or the possibilities of the deal.

According to Crowley, Twitter gave the search engines access to their real-time data and that made search results more real time. Now when you search for ongoing events, chances are that you will see a real-time results stream along with normal results. Even though it contains additional services along with Twitter (various blogging platforms being one), Twitter is arguably the mainstay and the ones to start this initiative. The deal with search Engines was also Twitter’s first ever commercial deal.

FourSquare is pitching the same data for serving with search results and the only difference will be that the data in question is real time location traffic. Crowley said that they had a massive amount of data from FourSquare users and also that they can make that data anonymous so that it shows only trends and not become an extremely precise tool for stalking a FourSquare addict.

He did not provide any estimate regarding when such deals may be signed, which is understandable given that they only just pitched the idea to these companies.

Given the fact that Crowley has close associations with Google, having sold an older, text-based version of Four-Square (Dodgeball) to them in 2005, Google might be the first to come onboard. The company apparently also employs former Google employees.

Even though FourSquare has a direct competitor called GoWalla, Crowley made it quite clear in his interview that there was no chance that they would ever consider merging to form one strong service with the best of both worlds. He made it clear that they had a differnte goal and vision than GoWalla. And so far FourSquare seems to be in the lead in terms of usage and members.

FourSquare recently achieved 2 million users. This was last week — roughly 3 months after they had acquired their first million users. Post recent investments, the location-based service is currently valued at USD 95 million.

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Google has decided that it will no longer use Windows-based machines for its operations. Hence, it has begun a purge of everything Windows and the sound of hearts breaking is echoing a long way from Redmond. Google has stated that this decision is based on low security level that such a mass market operating inevitably ends up suffering form. Despite the ongoing feud with Apple, Google has named Mac as one of the replacement platforms. The other is of course Linux, which they have been using for quite some time now.

After Google has finished dumping Windows in favor of Linux and Mac, we might get to hear and see more of the fabled Google flavor Ubuntu that Moutain View is said to run at its HQ. However, they have shattered the myth of Macs being more secure in comparison. This has yet again reminded us that the Macs are less vulnerable to platform specific virus and malware attacks mainly because the market share is really low in comparison to Windows. Lower marektshare translates to lower profitability to malware vendors.

This decision comes as a welcome break to security experts who have been telling enterprises for years about not relying on one single platform for everything or for too long. That is a sure fire recipe for security disaster. By using only one system, you are ensuring that whoever wants to hack into your world, needs only to figure out how to hack through one platform. And if that one platform happens to be something as big and as popular as Windows, you are more or less done for.

In fact, the enterprise habit of not upgrading (and the software vendor habit of over-charging), often ensures that they remain vulnerable to security holes that have already been patched in later updates. But they might have some software that was written a decade ago and only runs on the system that was current back then. In an attempt to save money from the upgrades, they end up opening up the gates for attacks.

Now Google is not part of your general corporate lunkheadedness. They make their money from practically lording over the Internet. So they, of all people, know a thing or two about platforms and security. So they have been on mixed systems for a long time now. However, one recent incident might have triggered off this move to phase out Windows.

Apparently, a Windows machine was a key element to the China hacking attack at Google. A Windows PC was used to gain access to Google internal network and Google has never been the same again (probably). Those of you still stuck to Macs, to realize however that it is stupid to be complacent about security on your platform just because it is at negligible risk right now.

As the market penetration for Macs increase, it might turn out to be the next Windows. In the case of Linux, they very thing that holds it back might actually save it from being an early victim even after a mass adoption — its multiplicity. Linux distributions do share the kernel in common but each system is built differently and uses any combination of the multitude of elements that are available for Linux.

But now matter how secure the platform is or is not, online attack vectors act like a great leveling plane. If you are going to click all suspicious links coming to you on email and if you are going give out your personal information at the drop of a hat, nothing in this world can save you from having your identity stolen and your bank account emptied. Worst still, having kiddy porn downloaded on to your system automatically with a handy notification sent to the Bureau. It has happened once my friend and it will happen again if you are not careful enough.

But a little bit of wariness goes a long way. So do remember to check things like the URL, the encryption lock, etc. And try not to send your sensitive data as clear text. Use some form of encryption. Don’t ever put it down if you don’t have to. Remember, your brain is still hack-proof. At least digitally it still is.

But if you are running any kind of company and need to maintain databases and all, you have to remember that you are now responsible for not only your stupid mistakes but the multiple others who work for you or for the company that you are under. You cannot cure everybody off bad surfing habits but you can make sure that the system is less vulnerable. This is the time to switch to a multi-platform set-up. Just remind yourself of the old “do not put all your eggs in one basket” saying and convince yourself (or your boss) that you need this.

The path to this transition is not going to be smooth but you will at least have peace of mind knowing that your private data is not up for sale on some shady russian forum. Or worst still, you customers’ data might be on sale. I am no PR guy but I am pretty sure it won’t do your reputation in the market a good turn.

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Steve Jobs appeared on News Corp’s D8 conference and answered surprisingly probing questions with relative openness. He talked about burning issues such as flash, app approval, Google’s competition, Siri acquisition, the whole iPhone at the bar incident, AT&T and more. If that topic list doesn’t tell you already, this interview of Steve is definitely one of the most revealing ones of recent times.

Looks like Steve has decided to be more open about what goes on inside the Apple HQ and inside their decision making process. Earlier, he has been known to be really secretive about what they do and why they do it. But off late, he has been shooting off email replies by the dozen and even getting into an email flame war with a Valleywag editor. He also published a long blog post about the why’s of why flash is not allowed on the iPhone OS. And he talked about all of those things in the interview.

Hosted by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, this interview seemed to cover everything on people’s minds about Apple and it started with flash. It is surprising how well Steve handled these questions. They of course usually talk in advance about what is okay to ask about but it seems like Steve was really had to think before answering some questions.

Starting with flash, Steve described the whole process as them selecting which tech horse to ride on. He said that every technology has a life cycle and right now Apple sees flash as on the wane and HTML5 on the rise. He brought back memories of how they were the ones to popularize 3.5″ floppy disks and the first to get rid of it on the first iMac. They were also the ones to adopt USB and so on. So this is just another step that they have taken to be on the cutting edge of things. When Walt said that consumers still want it, Steve simply said that they buy what they like and if they didn’t like Apple’s products, Apple would be out of business (which they are most emphatically not!).

Talk about HTML5, he used it in the interview multiple times to highlight things. He said that they had the best HTML5 support in the world and while there have been promises of smartphones coming out with Flash, none have quite made it yet. When asked about the curation of the app store and the high profile rejections, Steve said that they have two levels when it comes to iPhone apps. One is close and controlled by them — the App Store — and the other is fully open — HTML5. So yes, he is promoting web apps, contrary to a popular opinion that Apple would love to clamp down the whole app scenario to make it App Store exclusive.

Steve was also asked about the iPhone theft and he said some interesting and some expected things. He did not repeat anything we didn’t know but was surprisingly forthcoming about it all. At first he said that it was all very “amazing” and he compared it to a crime thriller (“I am sure there is some sex in there somewhere”).

One of the many quotes that came out of the interview was this one — “Foxconn is not a sweatshop”. He cited the fact that the factory employs over 400,000 workers and the suicide rate was actually lower than the US average (and other suggested that it is also lower than the Chine average). i would side with Steve on this one because the whole suicide thing has been taken out of context and blown out of proportions by media outlets of all kinds.

Steve also admitted that they lost the ‘Platform war’ with Microsoft because they didn’t see the whole thing as a war. Apple was busy improving on what they had already and did not pay much attention to the competition.

The interviewers seemed to be harping a lot on the whole Apple v/s Google issue but Steve handled it rather gracefully. But he did repeat something that we have already ready being attributed to him. He said that Google is the one who chose to compete and not Apple. So they are competing but Steve said that that there was no reason to be “rude” about it. Interpret as you may. He left a lot of room in there. Steve also said that Google will not be removed from the iPhone.

Walt suggested that they had bought a search company, citing Siri. But Steve made it clear that he won’t see it that way and that the company really was an AI company. Which is true. Siri’s whole searching thing is just one thing that the advanced AI behind it can do.

Moving on the iPhone again, Steve confirmed something that we already had heard before as a rumor — the iPhone OS started on a tablet and then got shifted to a phone. He criticized Microsoft’s approach to the tablet, repeating the whole point about how handwriting is just too slow and how they were just trying to translate the PC UI on to a tablet.

The tablet topic also brought up the whole content debate. In this context Steve spoke out loud about the pricing of content and how content providers see the market. He cited historical evidence from when Apple turned the music industry around. The record labels apparently saw the retailers as their target and not the individuals and not the individuals. Apple changed this and according to Steve, their experience dictates that sellers go for aggressive pricing and bulk sales. It has worked for music (oh boy has it ever!) and Apple is confident that it will work for print content as well.

Walt picked up on the fact that this clashes directly with the whole e-Book price wars where Apple was instrumental in raising prices. Steve maneuvered away from this one because clearly it is impossible for him to admit that they did it to lure the publishers away and then slowly getting them to accept a new business model.

Steve actually spoke reams about a lot of different stuff and you should really go and check out the original interview.

This article is based on Engadget’s live coverage of the interview.

Intel is looking into Google’s newly released WebM format and considering adding hardware acceleration for the format on its specialized Atom chip. WebM is a new video format released by Google, which is based on the VP8 codec. Intel is one of the partners who are working with Google to bring about the Google TV platform to the world and the WebM format is meant especially for that platform.

Intel is thinking about adding hardware acceleration for Google’s WebM high definition video format on to its Atom CE4100 chip. Google released the WebM format in order to use it on the newly unveiled Android-based Google TV format. WebM is based on the VP8 codec, which was gained by Google earlier this year when they bought On2 Technologies. The VP8 codec ties is perfectly with Google’s work principles because it is an open codec and is not locked into proprietary ownersip like the commonly used h.264.

Google’s aim for the WebM standard is to make it a common standard for the web and use it to stream video between various platforms. But for now, it is going to be used on the Google TV platform. This platform has been devised to bring the new-age internet media to co-exist with the the traditional broadcast media that exists on our televisions already. Google’s plan for this is to make both broadcast media and internet media to blend into a smooth experience through a well-designed interface and integrated system.

Google has been collaborating with Intel to make the chips that are required for the Google TV platform to function. Intel has hence developed a highly specialized Atom chip called the CE4100. It is perfectly suited for the job and is being used by Sony, Google’s other partner, to make TV’s and Blu-Ray players that will have Google TV onboard. There have also been talks of Google TV appearing on set-top boxes.

Even though Intel is a partner and has a made a chip especially for Google TV, they are not yet ready to add hardware acceleration for WebM on the Atom CE4100. They want to do it, as it seems from their words but they are waiting for WebM to take a hold on the platform (and probably other places). Bottom line, they do not want to go supporting something that might turn out to be vaporware.

However, for Google this is one more strategic move to strengthen their Google TV platform. Since this platform is Android-based, it inherits the almost openness of the OS and also features like the Marketplace. Users can not only access existing apps on their Google TV, developers can now make special apps for the Google TV platform. With this open codec-based format in place, Google might at least be able to avert a total lock down on online video by one company.

H.264, which is the most common video format on the web at the moment, is a proprietary codec that is controlled by a patent investment group and can be used to extract exorbitant revenues from the Internet services and users who are dependent on H.264 codec. Google’s WebM is one of the handful of open standards that are currently being pushed for becoming the de facto standard of online streaming.

So in the midst of all this confusion, Intel is playing the wait-and-watch game to figure out whether it would be worth the trouble to add hardware acceleration for WebM. Google TV systems based on the Atom CE4100 chips will be able to decode WebM though — it will just use software acceleration to deliver the video playback. There’s however some doubt about the level of performance that can be expected from such a set up.

Intel has been pushing the Atom Ce4100 chip to TV manufacturers for creating smart TVs. The chip boasts of being able to attain a stable clock speed of 1.2GHz and decode and playback two simultaneous high definition video feeds. Its main advantage is the ability to deliver high quality video through faster decoding and manage to consume less power.

But Intel is not the only interested in WebM and some major hardware and software vendors have already started declaring their support for WebM. Software vendors Microsoft, Mozilla and Opera have already announced that they will support Google’s WebM initiative. Chip-maker Broadcom has declared that their VideoCore IV chip will have hardware acceleration in place for WebM. This chip from Broadcom is used in smartphones.

ARM has also mentioned in the meantime that they are planning to support Google TV. They said that along with the support for Google’s Chrome browser and Adobe’s Flash, they are also working on supporting Google TV. That might also include support for WebM.

Since Google owns the world’s largest video site — YouTube — they are in quite a good position to leverage the WebM format through their own means if necessary. But if vendors continue to push for Google TV, its creators might not need to do much on their own except for developing it further.

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Google has decided enter yet another market with their Android platform and this time they will be invading your living space alongside it. Say hello to Google TV. Starting from later this year, Google’s Android will be found on devices from Google’s industry partners that range from TV’s to set top boxes and Blu-Ray players. The idea here is to bring the web to your living room like never before and make it as smooth an experience as possible.

Google is taking this step at a time when none of its competitors have cracked the market fully. Apple’s famous quote about it being a hobby gives us the feeling that they don’t take it seriously either. At such a time, Google’s entry in to the market might change the metrics completely for the still nascent industry.

The search giant aims to take the TV and make it a ‘Smart TV’ with the implementation of Android in it via either the devices mentioned above or by integrating it with the TV itself. Every device that will be associated with Google TV will have WiFi and ethernet connectivity as standard to access the internet. It will also have a keyboard and a ‘pointing device’ or a mouse for input and navigation.

The existing options in the market have three problems with them, says Rishi Chandra, senior product manager at Google. These problems are that they are all trying to dumb down the internet for the TV, they are all closed and many of them are forced to choose between TV and the web.

So from his words, we can conclude that Google has already solved all those problems with Google TV. So we can expect it to have a full blown internet experience. And since FroYo was announced at the same event as having HTML5 and Flash 10.1 support, the whole of the internet including the flash heavy sites will be accessible through Google TV.

It also seems like Google is saying that one does not have to choose between web and the TV on Google TV. So it looks like we might finally be able to run both TV and the web simultaneously on these Google TV devices and still have good experience doing. Google’s new Froyo version of Android also helps in making sure that it has a stellar performance. FroYo is blessed with a Just-in-time compiler that is said to give the OS a speed boost of 2-5 times the current performance depending on what you are doing. Also, Google claims that the browser on FroYo is the faster mobile browser currently available in the market.

Android is already open and it has also been announced that the Android Marketplace will be accessible through Google TV. Since it is Android running the show, this choice makes sense. And this means that developers will now have a new platform to target their apps at. A new collection of features for a completely new line of devices. Android phones will also be able to talk with Google TV devices and act as remote controls, so there’s a existing

Talking about devices, Google has tied up with Sony, Logitech and Intel to create the Google TV devices. They have also tied up with Best Buy to sell this devices. Google has also partnered with Dish Networks to provide Google TV inside the Dish DVR’s. So far it seems like Google first steps towards market penetration are quite precise and well-planned.

Bring the web to the living room has been the attempt of many companies in the recent and distant past but none of them have quite succeeded in cracking it completely. There have been attempts like Boxee and all of them have failed to achieve any level of mainstream success. This has a lot to do with the fact that most of these are start ups and the larger ones like Apple and Microsoft somehow did not put enough effort into it.

Standing in contrast, Google looks all set to bring all of the web on to a TV set near you. They are emphasizing a lot on the third-party support that Android has and the full web browsing experience that Android has. Also, Google owns the largest video sharing network on the internet — YouTube and Google is said to support services like Flickr, Pandora, Rhapsody and Gaming sites like Club Penguin. And there’s also the small matter of Google making music available for download through the Android Marketplace, essentially creating an iTunes rival very quitely.

The future living room looks more like a war zone to me now but it should be really well connected nevertheless.

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Looks like Acer might actually pull off what they set out to do in the first place with Google’s Chrome OS. They wanted to be the first out the gate and if the reports are true, they are actually going to make it. And the moment of revelation will come soon because word is that they are going to unveil their Chrome OS product at this year’s Computex, which will start with the start of the next month.

Google did say that the second half of this year would see the proper, hardware launch of Chrome OS and it seems like that promise will be met with room to spare. If Acer does introduce a Chrome OS device at Computex this year, we will get to see the Chrome OS in real action as soon as June 1st — the day Computex starts.

Computex, of course, is a pretty nice event to show off your latest OS and your latest hardware at. So Acer won’t just be putting it out there without anyone to look at it. But there remains one very important question — what will Acer be bringing out at Computex?

The obvious reply would be a netbook. That is what the Google Chrome OS is designed for, that is where Acer has a lot of competition right now (mostly from Asus) and that is what is the easiest to make at this point. But speculations are floating around in the industry suggesting that it might be something else as well.

Like a tablet may be. Love it or hate it, the tablet is here to stay and Apple’s iPad has made sure that portable computing would never be the same again. So where would the rest of them go if not to a place where their product line includes a healthy dose of new-age tablets? This has pushed every big computer company to come up with their own versions of the tablet but so far they have not been able to match the speed and performance of the iPad. Forget the elegance.

Chrome OS is built to be spartan from day one. It is lean, has nothing but the basics on the device and includes only the bare minimum drivers and such low level things. So it has extremely fast boot times and is supposed to be snappy even on weaker devices. On the Chrome OS, the OS is basically the Chrome browser and everything is done online. All the app are online, most of the data is in the cloud and the emphasize on it is so strong, there’s still confusion about whether it will be able to play local media or not.

Acer might also surprise with something entirely new. We cannot be sure. I would say that the netbook has a high possibility of happening and the tablet has a lower possibility. And they have more experience in making netbook and netbook like devices than a tablet. However, since Google has hinted at Chrome OS incorporating touch-based inputs, the possibility of it coming out at computex cannot be fully ruled out.

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Yes it is a run for the acquisition these days for the two big Giants of the tech world — Google and Apple. Both of a lot of great ideas and they both lack the patience and the opportunity to  sit down and develop on those ideas. So what they lack in time and resources, they make up in strategic acquisitions. This is not really a new practice in the business world but it is exciting to see how these two companies are thinking regarding their own and the industry’s future through these acquisitions, some of which can be very telling. This time, we talk about Google and their acquisition of ‘BumpTop Computers’.

BumpTop is a really neat concept and it reminded me of Microsoft’s ‘Surface’ concept. But it is essentially a virtual representation of all your data in a way that looks closer to real life — a virtual desk with objects that behave just like objects in real life. The interface is purely touch based and has multiple gestures to do things. Look at the video below to get an idea of exactly what I am talking about.

So as you can see by now, the BumpTop is really working on very complex gestures and touch-based features which have so far been identified only with Apple and their products. Apple has of course long since acquired a company called Fingerworks that used to make fantastic gesture based systems. It is said that Apple’s advanced gestures and touch systems are thanks to the inputs from this brilliant team of engineers.

Coming back to Google, it seems like they are making a similar move with BumpTop here. Only, it is far more apparent now what they intend to do with BumpTop than it was when Apple acquired their touch and gesture team. The popular opinion on the market is that this will be ported to the Android and improve the user experience there.

There is in fact a lot of opportunity to improve touch and gestures on the Android. It is pretty good as it is now but to keep up with Apple, Google cannot always resort to copy/pasting major features from Apple. They sometimes have to innovate on their own as well. And BumpTop will definitely help them up the ante on the touch game. BumpTop’s innovative system with really complex gestures that work really well can do wonders for Android.

But then there’s another area where the BumpTop can really shine. As you can see in the video, the BumpTop is not really meant for  a small screen. In fact, the two handed gestures that you see in the video will be really hard to use on small screens. On the smaller screen, there really is only so much you can do before you run out of space to maneuver.

So instead, this new acquisition of Google might be working on something else. They have be working on improving a tablet that Google is quietly building in the background. There’s obviously no doubt that Google simply cannot miss the tablet bus. Everyone’s already on board or has their ticket in the making. Google is the only one who have been really quiet on that front. It is quite possible that the BumpTop team will work with Google’s favorite — HTC, to make a great tablet experience a reality for Google.

The tablet and the touch screen mobile phone are definitely going to be big parts of the future in gadgets and hence Google working on improving the experience on one or both should not come as a surprise to anyone really.

There’s also another angle to this — this also one of the most prominent hardware oriented that Google has made in recent times. Even though what BlumpTop is selling is essentially software but it only makes sense when used with the right hardware. Google can’t exactly make web applications out of what BumpTop has to offer to them.

Hence, here is a clear signal that Google is heavily leaning towards the hardware side of things. Perhaps they have finally realized that people actually go to bed with their hardware (pardon the pun/s) and they form real bonds with those lifeless pieces. Google may have become a verb but as soon as the PC is switched off and the mobile phone is used to make calls and listen to music, Google seizes to be on users’ minds. But with hardware products, companies like Apple can become parts of lifestyles, identities and personal lives of people. Just like it is hard to deny the fact that vinyls are still the sexiest way to release music and feel the most real of all mediums that have so far been invented for music distribution.

With BumpTop, Google can actually make something so appealing and personal that it might upset Apple HQ just by how nice it is to use. But that is still a possibility. That is one department where Apple simply cannot be beat. BumpTop is definitely very gifted and innovative but integrating that into a coherent experience that sits well with Google’s existing work is not going to be an easy matter.

Thus, we should not be expecting to see BumpTop’s influences before the next major Android release. And if BumpTop is actually working with the Chrome OS team, then it is going to be another story altogether.

People have already asked Google how touch-friendly Chrome OS is going to be and Google has not been very clear in their answer. They just said that they are looking at it. It seems like they know that touch is important to any modern OS (mobile or otherwise) but they have no idea how to integrate it. So they likely still working on it. The worrying part is that we haven’t heard about Chrome OS all that much lately and the release that was promised for later this year might get delayed. But then if we get a great Chrome OS based tablet where nothing is on the device expect that hardware and the minimal OS with basic native storage — we’d definitely be surprised and in a very nice way.

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Looks like Apple made yet another key acquisition just before April gave way to May. Apple has officially acquired Siri and has officially kept its mouth shut about what the company intends to do with the company. So that leaves us to go through all the possible reasons why Apple did this. And while it may seem like they did it for the obvious reason, i.e. voice, let me begin by tell you that things are never that simple.

Siri came to our attention as a very interesting kind of iPhone App that had the might of the DARPA’s research into speech recognition and A.I. I say had because Siri is clearly not going to be building iPhone apps anymore now that they are a part of the company that makes the iPhone. They more likely to be working to improve one or add a key facet to the iPhone itself. But first let’s look back on what Siri the iPhone app was and what set it apart.

Siri is a one of a kind private assistant app that listened to what you were saying and gave you proper results. To use Siri, all you had to do was speak. It wouldn’t be able to handle philosophical questions like “What do you think about the Surrealist school of painting” but it can help if you are looking for “A nearby place to look at modern art”. Siri will guide you through nearby places of interest using its own databases and will also make appoints for you whenever possible. It has tie ups with a few restaurants and theaters for doing this. For everything else, Siri will help you as much as possible with full directions, phone numbers and addresses. It can even set reminders for you and email them at the required time. It can do loads of other things like finding contacts and calling the person you want to talk to. All you have to do is ask it to do so.

As you can decipher by now, for a free app (it is fully free), Siri does a lot of complex things and nothing else on the market can do. This is mainly because Siri has a lot of research behind it in terms of speech recognition and artificial intelligence. There’s one thing I did not mention in the description above – just like a real assistant, Siri can also learn with time. It will use the usage data to learn about the preferences of its user and improve its results and personalize them better as time moves on.

Hence, Siri is not just a simple voice activated search. It is a complex system that uses voice recognition, massive databases and artificial intelligence that can learn on its own to execute rather complex tasks that come naturally to human beings. As we know, we human beings are still the best at the things we do — searching, sorting, identifying, learning and adapting.

What Apple wants with Siri thus cannot be simply restricted to improved voice recognition, although it is definitely one of the main reasons why Apple is doing this. Siri’s ability to learn and adapt and serve up accurate results has a lot of potential in another area that Apple is trying to get into and that is Search.

Apple would very much like to replace Google and not have to go with Bing. They might hate Google right now for all its copy-pasting with the Android but the fact that Apple still Maintains Google as the default shows that they still put user experience above business rivalry. Google alternatives are still nowhere near where Google’s accuracy and relevance is.

But that does not change the fact Google is currently Apple’s single biggest and closest competitor in many ways. To counter this, Apple cannot just simulate a decade worth of algorithm work by some of the world’s most gifted engineers. So why not purchase an artificial intelligence that was developed with the very purpose of learning to serve up personalized results and get better over time. Apple probably is not aiming at web search right now but they sure could use it to sort through a few massive messes like the App Store is now.

Efficient search and discovery is very often key to sales and user experience and this is what differentiates a product with billions spend in research over a product that is trying to mimic somebody else. If Apple can crack the Search nut, they can have one over Google and that too at the search Giant’s own game.

Siri has got a lot of potential in accomplishing those things for Apple. It is absolutely state of the art in its field and it seems to me that that their approach here is different from what Google does. Even though both call to their own servers to get the computing done, they do it in very different ways.

Google is nowhere as personal as Siri is. Siri is much more focussed on accomplishing certain tasks whilst Google is still a very broad tool to take care of anything and everything. This is perhaps where Apple will differentiate their use of a search tool from how Google does it. In any case, if there’s one thing that clearly emerges from all the speculation and analysis, it is this – Siri’s technology is going to be used for the mobile platform primarily, if not exclusively.

Currently, there is great need for it on the mobile platform than on the portable or desktop mainly because the physical keyboard is taking a back seat and screen real-estate is at a premium. Apple has already demonstrated their love for a futuristic device in the ‘Knowledge Navigator’ video. The more personal you can get with their devices, the more value those devices will have. And if you can make your device do things for you and find the things your need just by talking to it — what can be better? Just remember that you do have social obligations and you should talk to your spouse and your dog from time to time!

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In a video, dug up by the good folks at TechRadar, Google’s Eric Schmidt is seen saying that the netbooks carrying Google’s upcoming Chrome OS might be selling for $400. According to him, that is because there is no software cost associated with these netbooks thanks to Chrome OS being free. The cst will only be the hardware and the margin of the sellers and the manufacturers. But will this work for Google?

While some might say that entering the netbook market right now may not be such a good idea because the tablets are coming but Google has been at it for way too long to quit this. Google had already declared that Chrome OS will only be sold as bundled with netbooks and won’t work on any and every machine. So Google will be in close ties with multiple manufacturers and to reduce the cost, the companies may be compensated. Google will probably look to earn that back from the all the ads and paid storage accounts that they sell through these netbooks.

The idea behind Chrome OS has always been to move everything you do on a computer to the cloud so that you will never have to worry about local applications, data corruption, maintenance and such things, ever again. And Google is open about admitting that getting people to spend more time on the internet works out for them because they will be using Google and its products more. So more ad views, if nothing else.

Schmidt also said that the netbooks might also be available through carriers on contracts but lets just hope Google does not walk that way. it is hasn’t really worked out for all those other manufacturers who have been trying to push subsidized netbooks through carriers for quite some time now. And after all of this, I still need you to answer one question — would you buy a $400 netbook that runs the Chrome OS? The netbooks market is very much about how you price your products.

Netbooks are devices that were born out of a necessity to have a small and cheap computer that will be able to do most of the lightweight tasks that everyone needs to do like checking their email and surfing the net. But now that tablets are out, the netbooks are going lose out on the portability battle. Tablets are definitely less bulky and way more portable.

If Google is actually serious about this pricing, they should seriously take a long and close look at the market. The market is full of people who want it good and want it cheap at the same time. If AdWords revenue is not enough, then Google might be looking at something else to get this off the ground.

We do not know exactly how many of the manufacturers are going to be in on this before it launches but Acer has already declared that it will be making and (hopefully) selling millions of Chrome OS netbooks whenever it does launch.

The launch date is somewhere around end of this year or very early next year.

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… and he still hates Google. That part has not change and will not change in a hurry. When it comes to one of the largest figures in the US media industry, Rupert Murdoch has probably been the most vocal about how he thinks Google is taking their expensive content and making it free for all to use. He of course wants to put it all behind a paywall and be done with it. But before we get into the old world business model versus new world business model debate (it is inevitable, I know), Mr. Murdoch has his say on the iPad. Video follows.

Okay, so after explaining how the iPad is stealing content from his companies in the usual official sound way, he loosens up a bit and talks about the latest product from Google’s latest rival — Apple’s iPad. And if you hear him talking about the iPad, you can be sure that the iPad magic has not only touched him, it has inspired him.

While being interviewed by Fox Business channel, media Mogul and News Corp. founder chairman Rupert Murdoch says that everything from the media world, every content, will be on the iPad. He says that books, movies, songs and magazines will be on the iPad. Of course, some of them already are on the iPad and more are coming for sure. He also causes Amazon some grief by comparing the Kindle and the iPad. Contrasting iPad’s richly colorful experience with Kindle’s black and white one, he makes it quite clear whose side he is on.

It should be recalled at this point that Rupert Murdoch has been heard talking about raising the prices of HarperCollins books on Amazon. HarperCollins is one of the top publishers in the world and it is owned by News Corporation, Mr. Murdoch’s company.

His enthusiasm for this new platform can be clearly seen while he is talking about the new user experience on the iPad and such devices. He talks about how a picture in an article he is reading can be turned into a relevant video simply by touching. Indeed, the idea of touching all the virtual content we go through everyday is a very tempting idea.

From his words, it is quite clear that he is fully positive about the ability of the new wave of tablet devices to revive the withering and dying print media industry. Once a mighty and roaring network of publishers and media houses, the print industry is dying a steady death with the advent of the Internet and digital technology. According to Mr. Murdoch, these tablets will be able to invigorate the advertising revenue in print media. Of course, it will no longer be physically printed but we cannot just rename an entire industry.

Also, soon the print media houses will be hiring video editors and shooting crew, programmers and new kinds of designers because the boundary between print and dynamic digital content is about to fade. Contents of all kinds will be merging very soon to give the users one whole experience. For example, if you are reading about an event that is happening at the moment, you can go to the live stream. Alongside the live stream, you can read the live updates from the web. You engage in conversation or record the event on your cloud service to stream at a more convenient time. Magazines will soon become much more than just great articles with pictures.

But the most interesting thing that I can think of is the way advertising will change. Apple has already made it clear through its purchases and acquisitions — it wants to get into the advertising game. of course, Google has been at it for years now and they are really good at giving advertisers the best possible performance. But if Apple wants to get into the content business that is centralized through its app store, it has to figure out a way to include ads into the content.

May be it will leave the in-content advertising to the publishers entirely, without offering them a centralized way to do it. Or may be they will launch something that is like an AdWords campaign for the iPad. Whatever it is, the media houses sure are looking like they are just raring to go. And what Rupert Murdoch says really carries a lot of weight because this is a man who is going to play a major part in how much and what content gets into the iPad and the other tablets. His decisions will carry a long lasting effect on this industry and Amazon is feeling it already now that HarperCollins is following suit after MacMillan’s price hike.

Mr. Murdoch also talks about how the iPad is small now but more are to come. He is possibly talking about the iPad getting bigger but there’s nothing that would suggest that he is talking from internal knowledge of what Apple is working on. This is most likely his own opinion at work. So don’t flip out over that part.

Soon, it will all be revealed and we will see how the iPad is panning out. All this waiting is the hard part.

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