Geek News and Musings

I can’t stop drooling over Gmail Labs. It’s simply a great idea for expanding a product, without forcing all users happy with the current one to upgrade to features they don’t want. And tonight may be the best Gmail Labs feature yet: Google Search In Gmail.

Yes, it may sound lame or obvious, but it’s a pretty kickass feature. Once enabled, it puts a Google Search widget in the left side toolbar of Gmail. From there, you simply input a query into the search box, and it will pop up the results in an overlay window at the bottom — the same type of window it users for IMs and Tasks. It will show you the top three results in this box automatically, or you can click “more” to expand the box. You can also pop the results out into their own window.

Yes, you’ve been able to search Google from within Gmail for a long time, but when you do so using the main search bar in Gmail, it opens another whole browser window for the results. That’s cumbersome. This keeps me right in Gmail and allows me to save multiple queries that I may need again later. And there’s another nice feature. Hovering over any of the results gives you a drop down menu that permits you to send the results to other people via email or IM.

It’s seriously getting to the point where I can almost do everything I want to do on the web within Gmail thanks to these Labs widgets. Don’t think Google doesn’t realize that either as it continues to becoming more of a social player on the web.

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A few different people have sent in this story about how the developers behind Miro, an open source video watching software, are experimenting with a different sort of business model to support the development of the software: adopt a line of code. It’s a cute little gimmick, but it is a creative way to get some attention and give people an additional benefit for supporting the project. They even offer a little widget that you can use to show off the line of code you adopted. I’m not sure how well this will work longterm, since it’s more about the gimmick than providing some sort of scarce value, but it’s still worth noting.

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BioMed Central’s Nutrition and Metabolism journal published the results of a study at Beiersdorf AG that found that an extract of white tea inhibits the growth of new fat cells and and breaks down the fat in existing fat cells.

After treating lab-cultured human pre-adipocytes with the tea extract, the authors found that fat incorporation during the genesis of new adipocytes was reduced. According to Winnefeld, “The extract solution induced a decrease in the expression of genes associated with the growth of new fat cells, while also prompting existing adipocytes to break down the fat they contain.”

White tea — the solution to the obesity epidemic?

Our friend Bonnie Burton Burton has a terrific new book out called Girls Against Girls: Why We Are Mean to Each Other and How We Can Change. In it, Bonnie explains the “mean girl” syndrome, and why even nice girls sometimes can be mean to other girls. I’m saving it for my daughters.

Written for all teen girls, this insightful book discusses different types of girl-on-girl cruelty, why it happens, and how to deal with it. With details on various forms of abuse common between girls—including betrayal between friends, cyberbullying, hazing, and the silent treatment—this useful guidebook will help teen girls understand why they show aggression to each other, cope with difficult situations, gain confidence, and work together as teams, while also suggesting when to get help from adults when situations get out of hand. It includes quotes and inspirational stories from famous role models who have had firsthand experience with girl meanness, such as Jane Wiedlin, founding member of the Go-Go's; Jenny Conlee, bandmember of The Decemberists; and Tegan, bandmember of Tegan and Sara.

Girls Against Girls: Why We Are Mean to Each Other and How We Can Change

The name “Android” is at the very core of Google’s mobile initiative. It’s even successfully gotten people to move away from calling the devices “Google Phones” or “GPhones,” something which seemed impossible prior to the unveiling. But Google may be in serious trouble of losing that name — or at least having to pay a hell of a lot of money to keep it.

Erich Specht, a man who runs a small Midwestern data company, applied for and was granted a trademark on the Android name in 2002, according to Forbes. Google? Well, it tried to trademark the name in 2007, shortly before its massive Android PR blitz — but it was rejected a few months later. Still, Google pushed forward with trying to gain legal rights over the name, but its appeals were again and again rejected, and its trademark application was apparently suspended last November.

So what does that mean? Well, Specht is seeking $94 million from Google (and all the other members of the Open Handset Alliance) for infringing on the Android name. He’ll be in court next week, and Google will have 60 days to respond to him. Given Google’s rejections by the Patent and Trademark Office, this things seems to reek of a high-priced settlement, in which Google gets to keep using the name while paying Specht something substantially less than the $94 million. But, it’s not quite that cut and dry.

You see, Specht actually owns the trademark on the name “Android Data” rather than just “Android.” But in the patent filing, it apparently describes “data” as merely a descriptive word, something which Specht’s lawyer is obviously playing up. In the past, Google tried to play the card Specht didn’t really care about the name and dissolved the company at one point, but that didn’t work. Still, it if can prove that people will clearly know the difference between the Android mobile software and Specht’s small company, Google may have a shot to get the case thrown out.

Something else to think about: Maybe Google is actually lucky that there aren’t as many Android phones on the market right now as it may have liked. It could save them a pretty penny if it does come to a settlement.

But regardless, just as it’s trying to ramp up the Android platform with dozens of new devices on the way, and a new 1.5 Android software update just out the door, Google cannot be happy about having to deal with this right now. And actually, this is all a bit like deja vu. If you recall in 2007, right after it unveiled the iPhone, Apple was greeted with a lawsuit from Cisco, which owned the rights to the name. The two sides quickly settled — but those were two big companies, not one big company and a little guy.

Remember Google, don’t be evil.

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It’s been just one month since email startup Xobni got an investment from the Blackberry Partners Fund, which brought its total B round up to $10 million, and already it has a working prototype for an upcoming Blackberry app. Xobni executives were showing off the app at a Mobile Meetup in San Francisco last night, and the screenshot above found its way into my inbox (which is “xobni” spelled backwards, you know).

The app was working, and could be released sometime this summer, according to my source. The photo above shows the app on a Blackberry Storm, and appears to be showing off its contact search functionality. You type in a few letters, and it returns all of your contacts that start with those letters. I wonder what else it can do.

Xobni, which is a plug-in for Outlook that incorporates data from various social networks, currently does not have a mobile client. But the company has hired a small team of engineers to work on mobile apps, with Blackberry being the first device to get one.

Not only is there the connection with the Blackberry Partners Fund, but I’ve been told in the past that there is about a 75 percent overlap between Xobni users and Blackberry owners. (There must be an Outlook-Blackberry mental axis out there). So it makes sense to go after the Blackberry first. But the startup cannot afford to ignore the iPhone. Can it?

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Good news, BlackBerry users! Never again will you need to kludge around in your browser just to dig up a number or determine who’s behind the number that just called. Following the success of their iPhone and Android applications, WhitePages will soon be announcing the upcoming availability of a native BlackBerry application.

It’ll still be a few days before the app makes its way to the BlackBerry App World, but we’ve been tinkering with a pre-release copy for a few days now.

The Major Features:

• People Search: Being as this is the first thing anyone thinks of when you mention WhitePages, this one’s pretty much mandatory. Pictured above.
• Business: Search by business name or category. Their business database seems relatively exhaustive and up to date.
• Reverse Search: Know a number, but don’t know who owns it? Punch it into reverse search, and they’ll dig through their database to try and pin it on someone.
• Company: As far as we can tell, this feature is making its mobile debut in their BlackBerry app. By searching through “a number of public and proprietary data sources”, Company search allows you to find the contact information for people who work at a specific company. Company name and last name are required. We tested it with a few major chains (Starbucks, Blockbuster) and it functioned as expected, listing their position within the company (where available) and contact information. A bit creepy, but equally useful.
• Recent Results: Even if you’re outside of signal range, you can look through the details for a number of your most recent searches.

Due to a limitation of the BlackBerry OS, one feature we’ve grown fond of in the Android port won’t be making an appearance: real-time CallerID for incoming calls. They’ve worked around this as best they could, adding a quick link to the reverse search function from within your BlackBerry call log. Highlight the number, hit “Search WhitePages”, and it’ll do the heavy lifting. It’s not nearly as handy, but it’s the best they can do within their boundaries

They’ve integrated the application into the OS in other ways, as well. From within any listing, you can initiate a call, add a contact, send the details via email, or get directions via the built-in BlackBerry Maps application.

The application seems rock solid overall, and does just about everything you might expect - or, at least, it does everything the iPhone port does (plus an extra trick or two). Unlike the iPhone app, however, the BlackBerry version won’t be free. Fortunately, it’s not going to be too hard on the wallet; at $6.99 for 6 months, the per-month cost comes in at under $1.17. This app has just been submitted to the BlackBerry App World, so it should be available within the next few days. Initial availability will be limited to the BlackBerry Bold, though versions for the Storm, Curve, and Pearl will be released shortly thereafter.

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There was a lot of controversy over the past few months concerning an attempt to change copyright law in New Zealand. After tremendous uproar over the fact that the law (a version of three strikes) basically would declare people guilty based on accusations, rather than proof or conviction, the government finally agreed to dump the plan with plans to revisit it. However, it looks like now the government has decided to completely start from scratch, and to recreate copyright law anew. This is quite surprising. Historically, changes in copyright law tend to be patches. Every time a new technology changes things such that copyright law doesn’t make sense, regulators duct tape on some “patch” that tries to deal with that new situation. Yet, New Zealand officials seem to be recognizing this, and want to see about rewriting copyright law from scratch:

The Copyright Act was written in the pre-internet age, and does not address any of the complexities surrounding file sharing, format shifting, and other modern issues such as DVD copying — problems the last government was attempting to fix in a piecemeal fashion.

Of course, the real question is who will rewrite the law and how the process will work. If it’s the industry, then you can expect the law to be much worse. But if it’s designed with the full spectrum of interests taken into account, New Zealand could represent a useful sandbox for really (finally) rethinking some of the myths and talismans that some copyright maximalists insist are true, but for which no evidence exists. Hopefully, the government will consider ideas from outside the industry, and recognize both the public interest and the intention of copyright law.

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For the past several weeks, plenty of my friends have had the new Twitter interface featuring both Search and Trending Topics on the main page, but I had yet to see it. Today, I log in to see that I’m finally special enough to get it as well — only to learn that it’s now officially been rolled out to everyone.

Say hello to the new Twitter.com, it’s a lot like the old one, but with the two important features. Search works great because it’s all done on the page without any reloads. And perhaps the most useful feature is that you can save searches that you do over and over again. Also included in the right hand sidebar is Trending Topics, which keeps track of the hot items people are searching for across Twitter. Not surprisingly, right now Swine Flu takes up the top two spots, with Mexico a little below it.

As Twitter co-founder Biz Stone writes, “Every public update sent to Twitter from anywhere in the world 24/7 can be instantly indexed and made discoverable via our newly launched real-time search.” And he goes on, “With this newly launched feature, Twitter has become something unexpectedly important—a discovery engine for finding out what is happening right now.” Some of us have been saying that for months, if not years, of course, but Stone is right that with Search and Trending Topics now right on the main page, both are more powerful than they’ve ever been.

And it all looks exactly as it should. It keeps Twitter simple, while adding some very key features. And if you don’t like the way they look, you can collapse them for a more traditional, minimal Twitter look.

I wonder if this will affect some of the third party Twitter clients that have been built? After all, these are two core features that people wanted on the site, and now they have them. I know I’ll be tempted to use the site itself even more now. And that’s something Twitter would no doubt be happy with — especially if it keeps putting new sponsored links in the upper part of the right sidebar.

Now if only there were a way to group users together and/or filter them on the site…

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

We’re already big fans of anything that corrals our cord clutter, but we can’t help but appreciate the craftsmanship that went into this very clever DIY earbud owl.

The earbud owl works under the same principle as a few of our previously posted earbud de-tangling tips, but this smart little DIY melds form and function like none other. The design template is available as a download from Thingiverse; once you’ve got it, all you need is a laser cutter (you’ve got a few of those lying around in your junk drawer, right?) and something to cut. The Thingiverse design shows an earbud owl cut from plastic, but we really appreciate the rustic woodcut pictured. Either way, this is one impressive but relatively simple DIY.

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