Search colossus Google has taken a PC approach to its latest feature, one which seems to have been designed to thwart those with chubby fingers, poor spelling or weak typing skills. I bet you thought we meant PC as in personal computer then didn’t you? No, we mean the horrid term ‘political correctness’ – and Google is pandering to those who fail miserably to even manage to search for something on the Internet.

Having a reputation for letting new, interesting, things slip out under the radar, the latest thing that has been unleashed from their nerve centre (presumably located in a dormant volcano, complete with a monorail and boiler suit-wearing goons and being scoped out this very instant by a suave British secret agent) is an incremental search. In other words, your search results update the instant that you type something in.

This has obvious disadvantages, along with its many advantages. On the plus side, it does mean that you don’t have to type the whole of ‘Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch train station timetable’ into your search box to check the departure times from everyone’s favourite Welsh train station, but on the other hand it could prove problematical if you want some information on (more…)

Google may soon be feeling the long arm of the law due to the collecting of data from its Google Street View cars. The cars have driven all over the UK (and much of the world) photographing every major, and not so major, road – together with houses and buildings. The photographs have been stitched together to form Google’s Street View, which is a great system that allows you follow routes and directions as if you were really there.

While privacy campaigners have complained about the issues of photographing every detail of people’s homes, this particular issue that could see Google’s collar felt doesn’t concern the pictures themselves. This time, it’s the data Google inadvertently collected via unsecured Wi-Fi networks that has brought them the attention of (more…)