Nicholas Kolakowski

Microsoft will preview a new version of its Internet search engine code-named Kumo at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif., the week of May 25. Kumo will organize search results in an efficient way, grouping them into subcategories, and represents an upgrade from Microsoft’s Live Search. For example, if you do a […]

Yahoo marked the first anniversary of Search Monkey, its open developer platform for Yahoo Search, and a few milestones for Yahoo Build your Own Search Service, its open search Web services platform. In a May 19 corporate blog posting, the company claims 70 million enhanced SearchMonkey results viewed daily, 15,000 developers registered for application-building, and […]

Google announced on May 19 that it would provide one-click automatic message translation for Gmail through a new application introduced in Gmail Labs. Some 41 languages are on offer, including Turkish, Thai and Estonian. The feature can be activated by clicking on the Settings tab within Gmail, followed by the Labs tab. Once in Google […]

Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster escalated his conflict with South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, who has threatened the popular community bulletin board Website with prosecution for supposedly posting “graphic material.” In response to previous outcry, Craigslist promised to remove its Erotic Services category at some point during the week of May 18, substituting for it […]

Twitter, the microblogging Website that lets its community post about their lives in 140-character “tweets,” will earn revenue through tools and services as opposed to advertising dollars, according to a May 19 Reuters report. “[Advertising is] just not quite as interesting to us,” Stone said to the Reuters Global Technology Summit in New York from […]

Wolfram Alpha Answer Engine Makes Its Debut by Nicholas Kolakowski No Title Enter a company name—such as Google—and Wolfram Alpha digs after that company’s online information, such as its most recent stock price, market cap, revenue, employees and net income. No Title Type in a past or future date and Wolfram Alpha will compare the […]

Wolfram Alpha launched on May 18 to much media attention, and a number of online pundits suggested that it could be a “Google killer.” Analysts have said that outcome is unlikely, but the search engine Website nonetheless offers a twist on traditional keyword-based search that could make it of particular use to academics and the […]

Craigslist’s promise to remove its Erotic Services category, replacing it with a screened Adult Services section, was apparently not enough for South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, who announced plans to prosecute the popular online classifieds Website, of which eBay owns a minority stake. “As of 5:00 p.m. this afternoon, the Craigslist South Carolina site […]

Google continues to lead the U.S. core search market with some 64.2 percent market share for its sites, according to a May 18 report by research firm ComScore. Second behind Google’s sites was Yahoo, which claimed 20.4 percent of the market, followed by Microsoft sites with 8.2 percent, Ask Network with 3.8 percent, and AOL […]

The Palm Pre, the smartphone being touted by some pundits as a potential “iPhone killer,” is apparently on track for launch in early June, according to an analyst from Barclays Capital. Based on that estimate, Barclays is raising its sales estimates and targets, although the company cautions that higher cost expectations could limit the ultimate […]

AT&T may lower the price of the monthly data plan for the Apple iPhone, according to unnamed sources in a BusinessWeek article. The BusinessWeek article suggests that AT&T could either cut the price of the monthly data plan or else offer a lower-cost plan in addition. One possible plan would see a $10 reduction in […]

The downtime experienced by Google on May 14, the latest in a series of temporary shutdowns experienced by cloud-based service companies throughout 2009, evokes one of those questions of burning importance to the enterprise: Are cloud-based services truly ready to meet business needs that require virtually continuous uptime? Google’s occasional shutdowns reliably bring a great […]