Google posts

Google is innovating so quickly, at this rate we might actually have flying automobiles by the end of 2010. But in the meantime, how about just a car that drives itself? You could see this one coming a mile off. Google has itself a self-driving car, and although the technology itself isn’t new, twinned with Google’s Street View and maps data they could have a viable commercial product on their hands. The cars use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to navigate roads and around other vehicles. The flux capacitor will be Google’s next addition, no doubt. The cars send data wirelessly…

This will be the dumbest thing you’ll read all day: Seems that Brits are using their iPhones to cheat hedge mazes. No, really. Consider the maze at Longleat Safari Park, which is apparently the world’s biggest, boasting two miles of paths and constructed of 16000 seven-foot-high yew trees. On average, a visitor takes about 90 minutes to wander their way out, mumbling frustrated, NSFW epithets under their breath all the while. But apparently, that’s no longer the case. Upon taking a stroll through the maze (I wonder if he does that a lot… I wonder if he gets bored), manager Tim Bentley has noticed…

Sony would have you wait until October 12th to get in on the details of its upcoming Google TVs. Sony would have you attend their event in New York to get in on this hotness. But this is Techi, and we will not stand to have you wait that long. What is that, another week? Five days. Another work week. That is outright ludicrous. Tell you what – why don’t we make you privvy to some of the leaked details right now, from the comfort of your own living room/bedroom/basement/phone? Yeah? Good plan? Good plan. Apparently, I missed the memo that TVs are getting small again – 24, 32, 40 and 46-inches will all be dropping….

Google TV finally has a site to help those still confused about what the hell it is to get their learn on. If I wasn’t excited about Google TV before (I wasn’t), I’m incrementally more now. First of all, the branding and visual identity is slick as a leak at a dish soap factory. Typically, Google sucks completely beyond belief at all things designy, but I’ve gotta say, I’m impressed – they’ve really gone all-out to make Google TV do the opposite of be crap. Y’know, in the brand department, anyway. To be honest, the experience overall looks pretty ballin’, as well. Network channels get a sexy launch portal,…

“There is what I call the creepy line,” Eric Schmidt said last Friday at the Washington Ideas Forum. “The Google policy on a lot of things is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.” The statement was made in response to a question by The Atlantic’s James Bennet, asking if Google had any plans to implant technology into people’s brains. “I would argue that implanting something in your brain is beyond the creepy line,” explained Schmidt, “at least for the moment, until the technology gets better.” Eric, I’m not gonna tell you how to do your job, but isn’t that something you shouldn’t say when…

Google just can’t leave anything alone. Give them two minutes with a computer and a couple of engineers and they’ll have reinvented something, made it better, quicker, smarter, easier. It’s what they do. So what have they been up to now, those nerdy rascals? Their latest means of improving the world is.. images. Fresh from their latest successes in speeding up the web via DNS and prioritizing our inboxes, Google is now looking at images as an area ripe for improvement. Since the inception of the web, the same formats have been used with little change. GIF was first, a small but low quality format designed…

A couple days ago, a photo began circulating ’round and about the sphere of Google’s Chrome OS running on an iPad. A picture is worth a thousand words, not the least of which are ones like ‘untruth’, ‘falsehood’, and ‘Photoshoppery’. That last one may be fictional, but google is a verb now, so whatever. In any case, the man behind the photo has leaked more proof of his achievement by posting an unbelievably brief video clip of the device in action, which may or may not provide his tale with more credibility – although, like the photo, this could be just as fake. As the YouTube comments suggest, this could…

As you’re well aware, most bodies of authority aren’t terribly thrilled with Google’s Street View these days, looking down upon the service as an invasion of privacy, etc, etc, you know how it goes. I, for one, forgive Google of its trespasses – quite frankly, Street View is an incredible tool, and – surprise! – Google tends to agree. “We often consider Street View to be the last zoom layer on the map, and a way to show you what a place looks like as if you were there in person,” explains Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering for Google Maps. “Whether you’re checking out a coffee shop across town or planning…

I’ve been thinking this one over for the best part of an hour now and genuinely have no idea where I stand on this one. Google’s Suggest feature has been a source of comedy and confusion since it’s debut, but now someone has actually successfully sued them over the results. The question “why can’t I own a Canadian” is a great example of a weird, disturbing result of a Google Suggest query, but the truth is that the results are generated purely based upon common searches. One unknown man took such offense at Google’s suggested terms linked to his name he successfully sued Google and CEO Eric Schmidt. Google…

Though the technology world is admittedly a bit obsessed with Apple, it’s hard to blame them. After all, the Cupertino-based company wouldn’t inspire so much chatter if their products and services were merely ordinary or everyday. Apple seem to have a knack for creating things – both technology and services – that provoke discussion. But why is it that their competitors – everyone from Google, Microsoft and Amazon to Sony and Samsung – fail to inspire the same sort of fevered adoration or initiate industry-changing shockwaves? What lessons are they failing to learn? Here are three things all…