Well I don't know much about the technology used, but the idea of asking a question is a lot better then the semantic gymnastics you have to do with google.

Robot penguins! I adore that festo company:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mk2OvFlFsY&fmt=

A natural-question parsing engine isn't new, Ask (Jeeves) has done it for a decade.
Its only really the illusion of inteligence that anyway, seeing as it gets it wrong more often then not.

The new and impressive thing here is it is using a proper semantic database backend too it, Google just looks up data dumbly, it doesn't know the relationship between stuff.

Ironically though, a lot of what they are demoing it with is stuff Google has done just fine for years. (Mathematics, unit conversion etc..google has modules to do this stuff). They really arnt showing it off to its strenghs.

However, In theory, this engine should be able to cope with semantic relationships, like my little demo engine here;

http://www.darkflame.co.uk/Mesh/sema...ntic_Query.php

(Allthough its a Dr Who dataset there mostly, searching for Food gives a good demo.
Ask for "Green Fruit" or "EatenBy:Human -Fruit" [eaten by human, not a fruit]. ).

My engine has a very limited dataset, but it understands that dataset. Its not just looking up stuff from a page or table.
The limitations of the dataset size by manual, single-source entry is also what convienced me wiki was the way to go.

I dont have time nor skills to develope that system yet, and I'm hoping someone else does it bigger/better first.
WA is, more or less, a advanced, decently-made version of my engine with a more friendly interface. However, they disapoint me by making it just single-source and closed.

To make it really fly they need to make it openly-submitable, and (in turn) to make that work,imho, they need to add a weighted-link system to deal with reliability of submitted information.

http://crazymotion.net/red-dwarf-bac...C9VE2AjAy.html
Red Dwarf - some cool new episode.
It's sci-fi so I figured it will fit in this little den of nerdynes we have here.

Yeah, saw them. Quite nice from part2 onwards, loved the zooming/enhacing spoof.

I was just thinking of the theme song yesterday. "Fun fun fun in the sun sun sun." (I was thinking it ironically as I was nearly boiled to death by Israel's summer sun)

What, so they're back? Didn't this show end in the 80's?

nah, last series was in 99.
They were going to do a film for ages, but could never get the funding, so they gave up.
But some digital channel recently was getting big enough viewing figures on the repeats to justify paying for this new special.
The special got pretty good viewing figures too, so they will probably make another.
Dont think they got the funds for a full series though. Red Dwalf is cheap, but "Dave" dosnt make their own shows normaly...in fact...this Red Dwalf was their first one.

And yeah, the theme tune is catchy.

I dunno if this is high-tech or low tech, but its sure is darn simple and cool;

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4a...field_creation

This is fun;

http://wildstylecity.com/wsc/

Paint graffiti over real google-map style streat views :P

Cant only do it in specific spots though.

Ok...umm...Google just reinvented Email;
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/...ogle-wave.html

I was highly skeptical from the discription, but the video demo made it look sooooo usefull O_o

I mean, gezz...I could nitpick the cluttered look of the thing, but really ,after watching that, I cant help thinking the current standard email system is utterly stupid :P.

This is actually the first Google project to truely intrigue me, especially because they went full way and developed an open-source protocol for it. Surely there must be tons of indie protocols that try to "reinvent email", but it's the first time (as far as I know) we see a big player doing this. And they did it very well. It's not just e-mail. I can't think of a single thing that Wave can't replace - with the flexibility that's inherent to it you barely need IM, Facebook, Twitter, BBSs, lists, etc. With the wave concept you can easily mimic the functionality of those, and if you can't mimic it you can probably directly implement the service with an extension. It looks extremely useful indeed, an e-mail killer if there can ever be one.

The possibilities are endless. Just an example that came to mind: my class uses Yahoo Groups to discuss matters that are relevant to all. The group is also occasionally used by some teachers to send us stuff. Mostly the teachers can't be bothered to sign in to Yahoo and subscribe and etc, so they just send it to a class rep who then forwards it. This isn't that simple of a process, and occasionally things get lost.

I just typed a long post detailing how a group system could be very nicely implemented in Wave and now I'm thinking of coding it myself. So it became a SECRET. The amazing thing about Wave is that you can have very complex tasks laid out in a simple manner, using nothing but waves and contacts and, if it really can't be helped, a simple extension. This is really good stuff.

Indeed. Good example too.
I keep thinking of new things to use it for myself.
First I pictured using it mostly as a better way to exchange feedback with my clients on various projects.
But now I'm seeing all sorts of over Oddball use's for it too. From serious self-project management, to stuff like running RPG sessions over it.

The long term implications are interesting though. If this protocall replaces email;
1) Would spam adapt too it? What would it be like?
2) Reduction in bandwidth use surely? Current emails always copy the previous one under it, this can build up fairly long fairly quickly. This might significantly reduce the overhead of email's overall, even if the protocol itself demands more upfront.

Good questions. I hadn't thought of spam, and I hope they have solutions for that. At first look it doesn't seem difficult to spam.

I also wonder how other companies would respond to it (if it catched on). Maybe we'll have Microsoft Surfing™ retailing for $99 in a few years!

I'm actualy positive microsoft will churn out there own, incompatible, one running its own protocall.
I suspect many other companys will use google's as a base though for their own stuff. Shouldnt take long for Linux versions to pop up as well.

I can see companys using their own internal versions a lot too. Google specificaly said there its possibly to send messages to/from people within a sever, and it wont even leave that system.....thats pretty good news for those worried about centraly storing their "company secrets" etc.

Microsoft will make the exact same thing and call it a Microsoft initiative and claim they made a revolutionary technology... Guh, Microsoft is so annoying, they can't even lie well.

Just wait till next week when they unvail their revolutionary motion controll for the xbox360, to go with their avatar system :P
(actualy, I dont mind that at all, but I do bet they make a big deal out of it)

Microsoft's motto: If we say it enough times, people will believe it.

I mean srsly, they're going to make a motion controller for XboX and then claim it's revolutionary? How stupid do they think people are? (people are pretty stupid, but not *that* stupid)

They did phone up companys telling them how insecure linux is, after all.

I'm waiting for that singularity point thing you mentioned we're approaching, it will crush Microsoft for sure.

Well, the Wave could be seen as convergance of email,messaging and even purhapes forums.
Not the singularity, but another step on the road.

It could also be a trojen horse. If its the killer-app for people to switch from IE, that could lead to good things for the web.

Google Wave as infrastructure. Pretty good article on Wave.

Good read.

Either I'm getting old and have stopped following tech, or I just don't get the hype about this wave thing. So it's a mix of blogs, email, IM and facebook. So...? And it's in browser instead of being standalone(major ew) or just using the browser engine (like songbird) so thank you but I'll pass... Looks like a nerdy gadget to manage all those useless social pages.

Its not to manage social pages, its to replace them. (well, they wont say that, but it effectively does)

This does everything email can, better then email, and does more.
I'm not interested one iota about social networks, but the video made it look massively better for discusing feedback with my clients.

Even the very basic ability not to have to cut and paste manualy to quote someone. That alone sales it to me.

Jasiek, check out the article I posted (or the GW video, or my posts). The interesting about it is precisely that it's not "in browser instead of being standalone", but an open-source protocol built on top of XMPP. This means the browser interface you saw is just an interface. You can code your client in Scheme and run it inside Emacs if you want to. You can release your client and sell it. You can hire someone to build a custom Wave client for you to use internally in your company's terminals. You can run a Java client in your toaster.

Watch the whole video, I'm sure you'll like some of the features. It looks extremely useful.

Abridged (10min) video of the wave presenation - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itc4253kjhw