bouncingboomergirlgeek: fyi & fwiw

Google Gives Free 411

Did you know that Google gives free "411" lookup service from any phone? I didn't. You dial the toll free number below, reply to the robot, it finds the number, and even puts you through. Especially handy from cell phones, but works from landlines too. Click on this link for a demo: http://www.google.com/goog411

Dial from any phone  (1-800-466-4411)

Now that Google can be my Phone Valet too, I just want to know when it's going to come do my dishes?

1.1. New and Cool List (a running feature of bbg)

from my New & Cool department / topic: widgets

• Newsmap (from Widgetbox)
  A widget that gives a visual display of current Google news headlines and their relative "weight"

Below is a screenshot of what you get when this widget is working. The actual widget is beneath (which may not be quite ready for primetime yet since the content may not refresh). If the include is active, click on the teeny tabs at the lower right to switch from US to European or from Tech to Business to see what's perking up in the world right now. As the authors say below, it's very interesting to compare their inherent biases:

 

From the folks at Widgetbox:
Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator. A treemap visualization algorithm helps display the enormous amount of information gathered by the aggregator. Treemaps are traditionally space-constrained visualizations of information. Newsmap's objective takes that goal a step further and provides a tool to divide information into quickly recognizable bands which, when presented together, reveal underlying patterns in news reporting across cultures and within news segments in constant change around the globe. Newsmap does not pretend to replace the googlenews aggregator. Its objective is to simply demonstrate visually the relationships between data and the unseen patterns in news media. It is not thought to display an unbiased view of the news; on the contrary, it is thought to ironically accentuate the bias of it. (emphasis added by me)

If I had a Chumby on my kitchen counter, I'd keep this widget at the front of the que all day. (See separate, upcoming piece on what "Chumby" means.)