Steve Bryant

We all know that our financial institutions have a tenuous grasp of reality. When bank employees aren’t too busy singing atrocious versions of popular U2 songs, they’re apparently scheming to shut down successful, home-grown knitting stores. My Aunt Alison e-mailed me this morning to inform me that a popular knitting site–Blue Moon Fiber Arts–was unceremoniously […]

I’m pretty sure everybody realizes this now, but I’d like to reiterate: The Official Google Blog isn’t a blog. It’s a press release and public relations machine that happens to use a blog platform. The Google Blog has been changing over the years, as Donna Bogatin notes. But the change isn’t mysterious–the company has simply […]

Now that Google owns a stake in Shenzhen Xunlei Network Technology Ltd., the search giant should urge the Chinese video site to quell piracy, says the MPAA. Xunlei provides software that is used by some to download pirated movies, said the MPAA. The site itself includes access to movies such as Time Warner’s “Flags of […]

A few weeks ago, when Jeremy Zawodny discovered that Google had ripped off a Yahoo page design, I thought it’d be fun to create a Google start page that looked like Yahoo’s. So here it is, just a little fun what-if comp. I’m no designer, so don’t yell at me for substituting the wrong fonts […]

I have never seen a more beautiful phone than Apple’s iPhone. I mean, wow. And I’m not the kind of person to get all teary-eyed over gadgets. The good news for Google fans is that Google Maps and Search will be available on the iPhone. Google doesn’t have an exclusive relationship with Apple, however, even […]

Another day, another lawsuit. This one comes from Fenner Investments, a Texas-based corporation, which on Friday Jan. 5 sued Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, alleging the companies were infringing on a patent for a low-voltage joystick port interface. Fenner claims (download the lawsuit here) that each company is infringing on patent 6,297,751, which describes a low-voltage […]

Update: Looks like this rumor was off the mark. Google released a new version of SketchUp today, and that version is compatible with Macs, which in turn makes it compatible with the new iPhone that Apple released, but that’s about it. This one is totally out of left field, but I’ve heard through the grapevine […]

After seeing the nifty little trends tool for Google Reader, I decided (again) to export all my Bloglines subs and make the switch. And while I know that the oft-maligned Reader has been the subject of numerous critiques and suggestions, I thought I’d add my two cents on things I’d like to see improved. Overall, […]

MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab recently provided 10 laptops equipped to Fiji elementary schools. The funds for the project were provided by a grant from Google. The laptops, which were provided to every elementary school in Fiji’s rural Taveuni district, are Lenovo Thinkpad R52s running Edubuntu, a Debian GNU/Linux-derived OS made especially for […]

Google announced today that the Google Search Appliance now gives customers the ability to customize SERPs for their unique corporate environments. New features: Results hit clustering — Basically sounds like a disambiguation tool that functions like drop-down boxes on specific Google searches. Google: “if an employee searches for “customer” on the company network, a set […]