June 24, 2008
GOOG-411 offers quick route to nearest Canadian clichés
IT World Canada
Sharky writes about Google’s new voice-recognition local search phone service which has now made its way to Canada.
“Users dial a hotline – 1-800-GOOG-411 – and respond to the questions posed by the voice-recognizing computer on the other end. This is a way to find a pizza place, for example. ‘We incorporated some Canadianisms such as ‘eh,’ ‘Traw-na,’ ‘Cal-gry,’ and, of course, ‘aboot.’ According to Google engineers, the service has been tweaked to offer ‘Canadian English.’”
The battle for the iPhone’s soul: handshake deals or hairy palms?
Valleywag
Jackson West looks at how Apple can grow the iPhone market further.
“Analysts, and Apple, are looking to the corporate market, with better security, email support and GPS. The problem? The device is tethered to a single carrier, Apple hasn’t played nice with corporate IT in the past. The real problem is that customers might want to keep the iPhone a personal device to lug around with their Blackberry and company laptop – so that they can have a personal browser free from management’s all-seeing eye”
Lenovo throws arms and legs around SMBs
The Register
Kelly Fiveash reports that Lenovo is to launch a new Thinkpad notebook line aimed at the small and medium-sized business market.
“The SL series will be priced from $699 to $1,199 in the US. The laptops will carry online backup services – the first of the kind for the Thinkpad line – and Absolute Software’s LoJack technology that helps track down stolen notebooks, the firm said according to several reports. Lenovo, which has yet to dish up hardware specifics about the new range, plans to officially announce the laptops in the next few weeks.”