Google Shows What’s Hot
Google has unveiled a service to track the fastest-rising search queries. Google Hot Trends combines elements of Zeitgeist and Trends — two existing Google offerings that give a glimpse into web search habits, but only in retrospect based on weeks-old data.
Hot Trends, a list of the current Top 100 fastest-rising search trends, will be updated several times daily, using data from millions of Google web searches. This will provide information in close to real time about what’s on the collective mind of Google users. Each Hot Trends response will show not just links to potentially related sites, but also links to associated Google News stories and blog searches, providing added context. Try it at www.google.com/trends/hottrends.
Three Flavors of Photoshop Training
The National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) has released three new Photoshop CS3 training classes: Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Beginners, Adobe Photoshop CS3 Power Session and Adobe Photoshop CS3 Channels. The courses are available in either DVD format ($62.99) at www.photoshopvideos.com or as a 21-day online course ($69.99) at www.photoshoptraining.com.
While clearly Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Beginners is for novice users and Adobe Photoshop CS3 Power Session is advanced training, Adobe Photoshop CS3 Channels, is a new class that teaches how to use channels in Photoshop CS3 to get professional results and a streamlined work flow. The course discusses such topics as making complex selections, B&W conversion, sharpening, repairing images and much more.
Online Travel Booking Without the Pain
Anyone who has ever attempted to book travel online knows that the process can be miserable and time consuming. Search engines deliver millions of results, aggregators promote high commission properties and brochure content needs to be compared with customer reviews. Meanwhile, the best deals are often located on a hotel’s own website.
Boo.com, a new type of travel site, offers “collective wisdom” to help avoid travel nightmares. Users can customize their travel plans to best reflect their individual preferences. Travelers easily sift through the more than 50,000 hotels in 165 countries available through boo.com, arriving at a handful of meaningful choices. Boo’s unbiased listings allow users to easily choose the hotel that best meets their needs, and then allows them to book directly with the hotel’s website.
A Better Display
At the 45th annual Society for Display (SID) 2007 exhibition Samsung exhibited its 40-inch LCD TV with LED backlight which won the SID Gold Award for Display of the Year. The 40-inch LED-backlit display delivers a contrast ratio of 10,000:1, which is five times higher than that of LCD panels with a CCFL backlight. Color saturation is also 105 percent of the NTSC standard. These improvements are helping to put LCD TVs with an LED backlight into the market mainstream.
Samsung was also demonstrating the world’s largest (A4-sized/14.3-inch diagonal) color “electronic paper” (e-paper), a plastic, flexible display that can deliver undistorted color images even when the surface is bent. The e-paper continues to show a static image after power has been shut off. The company also unveiled the world’s largest (40-inch) black-and-white e-paper at the exhibition. The display is an EPD (electrophoretic display) that can be used for creating extra-large digital information displays (DIDs), with HD resolution (1,366x768 pixels). It consumes very little power: 300mW at one frame per minute, which is 1/500 that of a conventional LCD display.