Gadgety News

After revealing that the Xbox 360 was the hotty for teens it seems that it’s the Wii who is winning the Christmas shopping battle - according to online shopping data from AOL Shopping UK and PriceGrabber.co.uk.

The funky ‘n’ friendly motion-sensing console has managed to grab 44% of searches since the start of December compared to the Xbox 360’s 35% and the Sony PS3’s 20%.

It’s not over for Sony though, as other stats show that Sony Blu-ray players are the choice this crimbo for spinning those Blu movies nabbing 44% of the crop, with the company’s BDP-S350 likely to be under most trees this Christmas.

Panasonic Blu-ray follows with 43%, then there’s a drop to Samsung’s 7%, Pioneer’s 3% and Sharp’s mere 0.53%.

The top ten most popular “digital” products searched for overall, according to the data, is as follows:

1. Sony Bravia KDL-32V4000 32-inch LCD TV
2. Acer Aspire One AOA110-Aw notebook
3. Sony Bravia KDL-40W4500 40-inch LCD TV
4. Sony KDL-40W4000 40-inch LCD TV
5. Panasonic DMC-FZ28 black digital camera
6. HP Compaq 2133 Mini-Note notebook
7. Samsung NC10 white notebook
8. Asus Eee PC 901 black notebook
9. Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5EB-K black digital camera
10. Pioneer PDP-LX5090 50-inch plasma TV

Are you expecting any of the above under your tree or stuffed in your stocking this year?

Google has broke out all 2.0 on us with their SearchWiki.

When you’re logged in to Google you can alter your regular searches to suit your needs.

Let’s say that you’re searching for info about gadgets and technology, as you do, you will be able to make sure that Gadgety News gets top priority

You’ll also be able to remove sites that are less…..fortunate and add sites that Google might have missed.  There is also the option to leave comments about the sites and searches - I’m wondering how long that will last or what kind of filters will be added.

The upshot is that if you’re prepared to put in the time you could achieve search perfection.

Google

Word over at TechCrunch is that Apple may be working on a search engine of its own.

This isn’t wholly unreasonable when you see that its Safari web browser has 6-7% market share but uses Google as the search engine for both the computer and iPhone/iPod versions.

And they can’t be overly happy with Google’s competition to the iPhone - The Android powered G1.

The perplexing thing is that none of the big hitters have “lost search employees to Apple”, or heard of any specific hirings.

So, either Apple have got their own folk already working on this or they have something else in mind. Coz, let’s face it, you can’t do it without people who know what they’re doing.

Whilst most things point at the rumours being just that they still persist - so there must be something in it; right?

So far the thinking is that Apple is in fact working on a different mobile search experience that is much more visual than the existing one. It will likely still be powered by Google results, but Apple may present it in a very different way that suits mobile users much better.

Keep coming back for more as I get it………

A bunch of ex-Google engineers have got together and gone and built a new search engine which is touted to cover three times as many Web pages compared to the monster known as Google.

This is a big deal as Google recently announced that they index a trillion pages.

The new company is known as Cuil Inc. (pronounced Cool) will be launching it’s search engine today.

Apparently it searches across more Web pages and studies them more accurately - let’s go and find out :0)

Source: WSJ

News is out that the PSP will be getting a boost to firmware version 4.00 “soon.”

The update includes the addition of Google search directly form the XMB interface, which Sony says “replicates the Google Internet search experience.” OooOooo!

That sounds the main thing, one of the other additions will be the ability to change the viewing speed during playback of videos stored on a Memory Stick.

Ok, so not awe-inspiring for v4.00 but perhaps Sony has managed to keep somethings secret?

Blog.US.Playstation 

It appears that Google Labs is testing a new-fangled search page where users can “vote” on all those links that pop up after a keyword query.  You can click “like” or “don’t like” and then this moves the voted rating up and down - Just like Digg.

This Google experiment only works on your browser and will not influence other Googelites, so when it recognises one of your search words your preferred sites will be returned.

“This experiment lets you influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results,” Google explains. “When you search for the same keywords again, you’ll continue to see those changes. If you later want to revert your changes, you can undo any modifications you’ve made.”

The page also includes a “Know of a better webpage?” link, where you can recommend additional links. Again, these changes will pop up the next time you search on the same keyword. Naturally, you’ll need a Google account, and you’ll have to be logged in for all this to work.

My question is, how useful is this?  If you’re searching for something, I’m guessing you haven’t come across it before.  If you like what you’ve found you’d bookmark it.

But as it has been pointed out to me this experiment could be elaborated upon. Google could in fact use your votes to influence search results across the web in that Web 2.0 stylee.

Word of this experiment has popped up here, but it’s not open to the web at large. According to a Google spokeswoman, only a “small percentage of people” were invited to participate. But even for these folks, it will be available for “a few weeks” only.

News lifted from The Register