Pulse2 - Technology News And Reviews

130 Of The Strangest Google Suggestions

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:18:14 PST

Google Query Suggest is a feature integrated in Google.com where the search engine will automatically try to fill in your keyword combination for you based on your history or popular search queries. The problem with the popular search queries suggested by Google is that they can be quite off-putting. Below I have put together 130 screenshots of some of the strangest Google Suggestions I’ve ever seen. Warning: If you are easily offended by religion, politics, or racism — read a different blog post on this website.

130. Can You X-Ray Through Peanut Butter

129. Lemons Are Louder Than Rocks

128. Can Vampires Get AIDs?

127. It Is So Stimulating Being Your Hat

126. Never Play Leapfrog With A Unicorn

125. Someone Photoshop Sperm On This Picture

124. Did They Pay You To Screw That Bear?

123. I Saw Mommy Kissing Tiger Woods

122. 2012 Will Get You Laid

121. Wolves Are Taking All Our Women

Ashton Kutcher Talks About Tooter On SNL [VIDEO]

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:45:20 PST

I’m not a big fan of flatulence humor because I think it is used for cheap laughs. I was a bit disappointed with this video because of that reason. However I felt compelled to share this video any way because it parodies Twitter. Watch Ashton talk about Tooter in the video below:

AutoTech Roundup: Hyundai Chairman Sued For $60 Million, GM’s Upcoming Rear-Wheel Hybrids, Ford Shelby Shows Off The 2011 GT500, Danica Headed To NASCAR, Jim Lentz Talks To Digg, Chad Henne Wins Audi Competition

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:30:56 PST

Hyundai Chairman Mong-Koo Ordered To Pay $60 Million

Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-Koo will have to pay $60 million in damages to Hyundai Motor Company because of a lawsuit brought by 14 minority shareholders in the car company. Hyundai shareholders Chung Mong-Koo and Kim Dong-Jin suffered major losses when Hyundai Motors sold shares of Hyundai Chaebol (Hyundai Airspace & Aircraft Co. and Hyundai Hysco) and their affiliates. [TheTruthAboutCars]

General Motors Working On Rear-Wheel Drive Hybrids

General Motors will be moving their Two Mode Hybrid powertrain made for trucks to rear-drive cars according to GM Vice Chairman of Global Product Operations Tom Stephens. This motor will appear in 2013 when GM introduces a new line of full-size trucks. [Edmunds]

Ford Shows Off The Shelby GT500

Ford will be showing off the 2011 Shelby GT500 later today at the SVT garage near Detroit. [AutoWeek]

Danica Patrick Heading To NASCAR Nationwide Series

GoDaddy.com girl Danica Patrick got 6th place at the ARCA race this past Saturday. This year she will have a Nascar Nationwide Series debut at the Daytona International Speedway. “Racing in the Nationwide Series race was my goal during this entire two-month preparation process, but we wanted to make sure it was the right thing to do,” stated Patrick as quoted by The New York Times. Patrick will drive the Number 7 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet Impala. [NYT]

Toyota Exec Jim Lentz Goes On Digg

Jim Lentz, President and Chief Operating Officer of Toyota Motor Sales will be answering some of the top questions asked by the Digg communitylater today as part of a Live Digg Dialogg. Over 1,000 questions have been asked on the forum. Some of the questions include:
“What do you drive?”
“How far along is Toyota on moving into some truly gas free cars in the future? Are these kinds of vehicles even possible or feasible in our current lifetime?”
“It has been years since Toyota had a sports car (Supra) available for sale in North America. Are there any plans to bring back the Supra or come out with a new afordable [sac] sports car?” [Digg]

Chad Henne Wins Audi Fuel-Efficiency Competition

Miami Dolphins quarterback Chad Henne won a competition between reporters, writers, and athletes to find out who can get the most miles per gallon out of a 2010 Audi Q7 TDI engine. The route was to be between Herdon, Virginia and Miami, Florida. Henne was able to achieve 32.6MPG. Henne won $20,000 and donated it to the Berks County Community Foundation. [Examiner]

News Roundup: Google’s $1 Billion Display Ad Biz and Translator Phone, AOL Is Close To Selling ICQ, Loopt’s Local Ads, Verizon Bans 4Chan, HTC Incredible, Riddim Ribbon, Nokia Class Action Lawsuit, TweetDeck Adds Flickr

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:44:25 PST

Today is Monday February 8 and Super Bowl is now over with the Saints taking the win. Congratulations to everyone in New Orleans. It is a sad day for Peyton Manning and friends, but there’s always next year. Here is your Pulse2.com technology news round up.

Google’s $1 Billion Display Ad Biz and Translator Phone

This year, Google is expecting their display ads business to generate more than $1 billion. This is about 4% of their total sales this year. If $1 billion is achieved this year, this would be an increase of about 40% from the year before. [BusinessWeek]

Google is also rumored to be making software for a phone that would be capable of translating foreign languages on-the-fly. The software covers about 52 languages so far. [Times UK]

AOL Is Close To Selling ICQ

According to sources with AllThingsD, AOL is close to selling off ICQ for a price that is near $200 million. ICQ has about 40-50 million active users across the world with a major penetration in Germany, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Israel. There is rumored to be about seven bids, four which are very serious. ICQ is based in Israel and has about 100 employees. ICQ is slightly profitable. [AllThingsD]

Loopt’s Local Ads

Loopt and Mobile Spinach have partnered to provide special offers and discounts for local businesses. As of right now the service is available in San Francisco and the company expects to roll out the service to other major cities in the near future. Loopt has about 3 million users. [MediaPost]

Verizon Bans 4Chan

4chan announced on Twitter that they have been “explicitly blocked” from Verizon. 4chan founder Christopher Poole attempted to reach Verizon to find out why they have been blocked, but Verizon was not able to give him a definitive answer as of yet. [ReadWriteWeb]

HTC Incredible

Above is a photo that was sent to PocketNow.com and it is believed to be the Verizon HTC Incredible. The phone uses Android 2.1 with HTC Sense and there is a Snapdragon CPU inside. The phone would come with 256MB of RAM and there is a 3.5-3.7″ WVGA screen. [PocketNow]

Riddim Ribbon

Tapulous has launched a new game called Riddim Ribbon. Tapulous decided that they wanted to move on beyond Tap Tap Revenge. The Riddim Ribbon game costs $2.99 and comes with several songs by The Black Eyed Peas. [Tapulous]

Nokia Class Action Lawsuit

A class action complaint has been made against Nokia alleging that the phone company had committed securities fraud. The complaint was filed at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. [PCWorld]

TweetDeck Adds Flickr

TweetDeck has created a new version of their desktop Adobe AIR-based software that allows you to view YouTube videos and add Flickr support within the software. The company has also increased the Twitter API requests for up to 350 API calls per hour. Posterous is also now supported. [Mashable]

40 Greatest Super Bowl Commercials Of All Time

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 08:44:17 PST

Super Bowl Sunday is here again folks. Personally I’m rooting for the Colts because Ervin Baldwin went to Michigan State around the same time that I did. And I also think highly of Mike Hart even though he went to U of M. And of course I also think that Peyton is one of the best QBs I’ve seen. And usually when I pick my favorite team, it is based on proximity to where I live. Lucas Oil Stadium is a couple hundred miles south of me. But one of my most favorite parts of the Super Bowl is the ads.

Every year advertising companies spend millions of dollars to advertise for the Super Bowl. A large portion of the money spent on Super Bowl ads go behind the creativity too. Although Pepsi won’t be participating in Super Bowl advertisements this year, CBS was able to sell about $200 million worth of ad space. About 100 million people are expected to tune into the game.

I have compiled a list of 40 of the greatest Super Bowl commercials of all time. Check it out and let us know what you think about this year’s commercials in the comments:

1. Ed McMahon and M.C. Hammer – Cash 4 Gold

2. Plot To Destroy The World – Hulu

3. Scream – Bridgestone

4. Rock, Paper, Scissors – Budweiser

5. Cavemen – FedEx

Auto News Roundup: Barry Levinson Threatens Ford Over Twitter, Toyota’s New Motto, Charlie Sheen’s Mercedes, GM Donates To Haiti and Builds A Robot With NASA

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:35:38 PST

Here is the end of the week auto news roundup. The stories include Barry Levinson threatening to sue Ford over Twitter, Toyota’s new “unofficial” motto, a story about Charlie Sheen’s Mercedes, and an update with General Motors.

Barry Levinson Threatens Ford Over Twitter

Using the hands free SYNC system, you will be able to update and receive tweets in the near future. However The Law Offices of Barry Levinson is getting ready to sue Ford Motor Company for that reason. Below is a portion of a press release that he sent out [TheTruthAboutCars]:

Ford’s development of technology to facilitate driver computer use runs counter to the national trend, which sees authorities cracking down on distracted driving… Ford defends its Twitter technology, claiming to be making existing driver behaviors safer. But Ford’s assertion may not hold up to scrutiny. The 2006 driver distraction study found that talking and listening to conversation via cell phone was as likely to cause a crash as dialing a cell phone; if this seemingly apt analogy for the distinction between typing on a computer and talking into one holds up, it would undermine Ford’s justification for installing Twitter technology in cars.

Toyota’s New Motto…

This picture was a hit on Digg. Toyota: Moving Forward Even When You Don’t Want To.

Charlie Sheen’s Mercedes

Charlie Sheen’s Mercedes was found at the bottom of a cliff around Mulholland Drive. Apparently Sheen left the keys in his Mercedes and the garage open. Sheen was notified about the car from a Mercedes rep. [Jalopnik]

GM Donates To Haiti and Builds A Robot With NASA

The General Motors Foundation has donated 30 GMC Sierra pick up trucks as part of the Haitian relief effort. The pick up trucks will arrive in Haiti around mid-February with additional supplies like tarp and tents. The GM Foundation also donated $100,000 along with $250,000 from the auctioning of a limited edition Chevy Corvette at the Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction [eGMcartech].

General Motors and NASA have partnered to develop a robot called the Robonaut 2 (R2). “The partnership’s vision is to explore advanced robots working together in harmony with people, building better, higher quality vehicles in a safer, more competitive manufacturing environment,” stated GM VP for global research and development Alan Taub.

News Roundup: Facebook 400 Million and Project Titan, Location Based Apple Ads and iTunes Web Browser, Snoop Vader, Sony Profits, Snooki Crasher, WWII On Google Earth, FriendFinder Cancels IPO, TC Intern Fired, Patrick Stewart On Twitter, and Stewart vs. O’Reilly

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:27:07 PST

Happy Friday everybody. Today is February 5, 2010 and below is the Pulse2 News Roundup. We are going to talk about Facebook, Apple, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Sony, Jersey Shore, Google Earth, FriendFinder, TechCrunch, Patrick Stewart, Jon Stewart, and Bill O’Reilly today.

Facebook 400 Million and Project Titan

Facebook is working on overhauling their message system in order to replace it with a web mailing system. The code name for the project is Project Titan [TechCrunch]. Facebook has also turned 6 years old this week and has reached the 400 million user milestone. [Mashable]

Location Based Apple Ads and iTunes Web Browser

Apple has notified App Store developers that they will be prohibited from using location based advertisements for their applications. “If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store,” Apple said [MacNN]. You can now browse the App Store on the web [PCWorld].

Snoop Vader

Rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg was caught in the middle of an imperial march walking around SoHo New York. It looks like Snoop has crossed over to the dark side since he is walking right next to Darth Vader. [HuffPo]

Sony Profits

Sony announced yesterday that they have returned to profit during the last three months of 2009. As a result, the company raised their outlook. [New York Times]

Snooki Crasher

A new meme has hit the Internet thanks to Jersey Shore character Nicole “Snooki” Pilozzi. The meme is called Snooki Crasher and it features images of Snooki in places where she doesn’t belong. Below are a couple of examples. [URLesque]

World War II on Google Earth

Images of World War II destruction have been uploaded to Google Earth. The cities where the images were uploaded include Berlin, Bordeaux, Hamburg, Cologne and Dresden. [Telegraph]

FriendFinder Cancels IPO

The FriendFinder Network filed for an IPO about a month ago. The FriendFinder Network is a brand that oversees porn websites and social networks. The company was supposed to start trading this week, but they have cancelled due to “market conditions.” [AllThingsD]

TC Intern Fired

TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington apologized to his readers on behalf of an intern that accepted a MacBook as compensation for writing a blog post. The intern was fired and every blog post he wrote was deleted. “I apologize to each one of you. I promise that we will always maintain complete transparency with you on how we operate, even when it isn’t such an easy thing to do,” stated Arrington in his apology. [TechCrunch]

Patrick Stewart on Twitter

Patrick Stewart, the Star Trek Captain Jean-Luc Picard, calls his mobile phone “my beautiful iPhone.” But he doesn’t quite understand Twitter and is has a fear of getting addicted to gaming. “To reduce life to–how many? 140? Just seems to me to be a little bit simplistic. Maybe I like complexity and abstraction too much.” [HuffPo]. And if you’re a fan of Patrick Stewart, check out a project that my friend Mo Kakwan made at Yahoo! Hack Day a few years ago.

Bill O’Reilly vs. Jon Stewart

Comedy Central news host Jon Stewart was a guest on FOX host Bill O’Reilly’s TV show earlier this week. The debate between Stewart and O’Reilly attracted 4,091,000 viewers. And about 1,041,000 of those viewers were aged between 25 and 54. [BusinessInsider]

Auto News Roundup: CarsForAGrand.com, Toyota Recall Costs and Earnings Update, Ford’s Upcoming Focus, and GM Extending Hummer Purchase

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:49:15 PST

1. According to Heritage.org, “The average American family has savings of only about $1,000.” Fortunately the average American will be able to buy a car if they need it thanks to CarsForAGrand.com. I heard about this website from Jalopnik and started exploring it after. It is like a craigslist for cars that are a grand and under. You can filter out the cars by location too. I highly recommend checking out this website if you are interested in buying a car on a budget.

2. Toyota reported a $1.7 billion quarterly net profit [Detroit News], but the recall will cost about $2 billion this quarter [TruthAboutCars]. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak complained about the cruise control in his Prius and Toyota acknowledged that it is being caused by a software glitch [Jalopnik]. Below is Jon Stewart’s take on the situation:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c

Toyotathon of Death

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

3. Ford is rumored to be planning the launch of a special-edition Clubsport RS and a Focus RS which will look similar to the 2012 Focus unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show. The Focus Clubsport will have about 500 units manufactured initially and will have a 2.5L 5-cylinder turbo engine, giving it 350 horsepower [EGMCarTech].

4. GM has extended the deadline for Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. to buyout Hummer from them. Now Sichuan has up until the end of February [4WheelNews].

News Roundup: Twitter Hover Cards, uTorrent 2.0, Sonic 4, Monster Acquires Hotjobs, WikiLeaks Raises Funding, Amazon Buys Touchco

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:09:09 PST

1. Twitter has announced a new feature called Hovercards. Hovercards appear when you put the mouse over a username or avatar and it displays additional details about that user. This will make it easy to follow, RT, and DM users. [Twitter Blog]

2. uTorrent 2.0 has been announced. The updated version is only applicable to Windows as of right now. The new version includes bug fixes, improved performance, bandwidth regulation, and UDP support. [Lifehacker]

3. SEGA has revealed that Project Needlemouse is Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1. Sonic 4 will be in 2D and will continue from the last Sonic and Knuckles game. The game will be available on PSN, Xbox Live Arcade, and WiiWare this summer. [Hellforge]

4. Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) has sold off HotJobs to Monster.com for $225 million in cash. Monster will continue to power Yahoo job listings for 3 years as part of the deal. Yahoo! bought HotJobs for $436 million in 2001. [TechCrunch]

5. Wikileaks is a website that started in 2006 with the goal of hosting leaked government documents. Wikileaks gained a lot of attention when 9/11 pager messages and Guantanamo Bay manuals were leaked. Wikileaks raised about $200,000 as part of a fund-raising goal to stay operational, but the company is seeking an additional $400,000 to pay staff members. The funding was announced via Twitter: “Achieved min. funraising goal. ($200k/600k); we’re back fighting for another year, even if we have to eat rice to do it.” [Telegraph]

6. Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) has acquired a New York based company called Touchco. Touchco develops touchscreen technology and will be merged with the hardware division for the Amazon.com Kindle. Touchco’s interpolating touch technology can be made transparent and work with color LCD screens. It can also detect an unlimited number of touch points. Touchco can achieve this at lower costs than the estimated iPad/iPhone screens (or $10 per square foot). [Engadget/NYT]

31 Interesting Social Media Data Visualization Tools

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:16:57 PST

Every day millions of people are tweeting, digging, voting up on reddit, IMing, texting, and uploading video content. Keeping track of everything on the Internet can be overwhelming. Visualizing some of this data can make things easier on our eyes. There are lots of tools out there that can help visualize and make sense of all of the user generated data. The purpose of this blog post is to raise the awareness of the tools available as of today. I have broken down the tools by the associated websites in alphabetical order here.

Digg

Digg 365 (Sponsored by McDonald’s) [Link] – Digg launched this service on the company’s 5 year anniversary of their launch. Digg 365 shows the top 10 stories on the day, month, or year. Users have the option to filter out top tens based on the categories.

Digg Arc [Link] – Digg Arc shows the active stories, topics, and containers from Digg.com as a sphere. As people digg stories across each topic, the arc grows bigger. This visualization tool can be downloaded as a screensaver too.

Digg Bigspy [Link] – Digg BigSpy shows stories at the top of the page as they are dugg. When new stories are dugg, they are placed at the top of the list. The more diggs a story has, the bigger the text.

Digg Pics [Link] – Digg Pics is a website that tracks images that are being dugg. As the pictures on Digg.com get dugg, the image thumbnails slide over from the left.

Digg Stack [Link] – Digg Stack shows about 100 stories in real-time that are being dugg. As a story gets dugg, a stack piece falls from above. Stories that are bright have more diggs than others.

Digg Swarm [Link] – Digg Swarm shows a circle whenever a story is dugg. Active stories are depicted as a circle and diggers swarm around it, causing the circle to grow. The brighter circles are the most popular.

Facebook

Facebook Friend Wheel [Link] – Facebook Friend Wheel is a Facebook application that takes your friend list and shows them on the parameter of the circle. When you put the mouse over a name on the outer part of the circle, it shows how your friends are interconnected.

TouchGraph [Link] – TouchGraph is a Java based Facebook application that shows you the connections between your Facebook friends, locations, and photos.

Flickr

Creative Photos [Link] – Creative Photos allows you to select a date and pull up 10-100 random photos uploaded on Flickr that day.

Flickr Map [Link] - Flickr Map is the official Flickr website that shows over 95 million geotagged Flickr images on a world map.

Flickr Time [Link] – Flickr Time shows uploaded pictures from Flickr in a collage that forms the current time.

Flickrvision [Link] – Flickrvision is an unofficial website that shows images uploaded and geotagged on a map.

GimmeShiny.com [Link] - Gimme Shiny is a slideshow website that shows the most popular images on Flickr, FFFFound, and DeviantArt every day.

qFlick [Link] – qFlick shows the most interesting photos on Flickr for today.

Google Maps

Alkemis Local [Link] – Alkemis uses Google Maps to zoom into live traffic cams and also aggregates content from Flickr, Delicious, A9 Blockview, and Yahoo! Traffic News.

tetonGeo.com [Link] – tetonGeo.com is a way to locate Flickr images, tweets, YouTube videos, and Foursquare through Google Maps. All you have to do is select a point of interest and select the social media data tool from the bubble.

Last.fm

Extra Stats [Link] – [Note: Windows only] – Extra Stats is a program that puts together tag clouds and charts using stats of your Last.fm listening history.

Fidg’t [Link] – Fidg’t is a desktop software application that shows you the activities of your Last.fm network. Using Fidg’t, you can find out the type of music that your network is listening to. Fidg’t also connects to Flickr to show you pictures that are related to the Last.fm tags. Fidg’t also works with MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger.

Gijsco’s Desktop Generator [Link] – Gijsco’s Last.fm Desktop Generator is software that downloads your Last.fm personal data and presents the cover art as a beautiful wallpaper.

ImageWorth [Link] – ImageWorth does a Flickr search for images that have tags related to the music you are listening to on Last.fm.

Last.forward [Link] – Last.forward is an open source mapping software that shows a visualization of any Last.fm user and connections.

Music Quilt Screensaver [Link] - This screensaver displays the cover art of artists and albums that you like. After installing the software, enter a username or tag and it will display the cover art.

Erqqvg [Link] - Erqqvg shows what is happening in real-time to stories on the homepage and on subreddits categories. This includes up-votes, down-votes, comments, etc.

RedditPics [Link] – Redditpics shows commenting and voting in real-time for pictures submitted to Reddit.

Twitter

TweetStats [Link] – TweetStats shows you the timeline, density, daily tweet chart, aggregate hourly tweets, reply stats and interface used chart.

Twitt3D [Link] – Twitt3D shows the tweets that would normally appear on your homepage in a 3D aerial view.

Twitter Browser [Link] – Twitter Browser is a diagram website that shows how people are interconnected on Twitter.

TwittEarth [Link] – TwittEarth is a way to visualize tweets on a 3D globe.

TwitterFountain [Link] – TwitterFountain shows you tweets related to specific keywords in a fountain format. The background picture is grabbed from Flickr based on the same keyword and changes frequently.

Twitter Vision [Link] – Twitter Vision is a map that displays in real-time where tweets are being sent from.

YouTube

YouTube Streams [Link] – YouTube Streams is an official project that allows you to chat with people watching the same videos as you. Users can create streams for specific categories. In this case, I decided to join the Michael Jackson Sexy Fans channel and see what people were talking about.