Google Translate has been added to Sites, this is useful for international teams working in different languages
PDFs attached to a page can be previewed in the Google Docs viewer without being downloaded
Users can set a default location for a page template, making it simpler for you to keep the pages of the site organized. "For example, if you have a recipe template in your family site, set /recipes/ as default location for pages created from that template so all your recipes show up together within your site."
The Copenhagen Wheel is a device that you add to the rear tire of your bicycle and which tracks distance traveled, “maps pollution levels, traffic congestion,
and road conditions in real-time,” communicating these metrics with your smartphone.
According to Gizmodo, the most notable feature is the wheel’s “Kinetic Energy Recovery System, a mechanism by which energy from braking is stored up for later use, giving the rider a boost when going up a hill or speeding through traffic.”
Ecycler creates a marketplace for recycling when no options exist. The idea is simple, connecting consumers with recyclables to individuals willing to do the work to recycle material in bulk.
Anyone with an internet connection can register on the site as a collector to create their own recycling program. Ecycler provides a customizable URL, downloadable personalized business cards and posters for publicity. Consumers with newspapers, cans and bottles to get rid of simply choose a collector on Ecycler.com, arrange a pickup and leave their sorted recyclables outside. The collector then picks up the recyclables, brings them to a recycling facility and collects the resulting cash. Ecycler encourages people to discard their recyclables for free, but discarders can request up to 40 percent of the proceeds from the collector. Discarders can also track their carbon credits on the site by listing how many recyclables they’ve given away.
Potentially this will increase recycling with a cash incentive in both areas with or without recycling programs.
You can merge all your duplicate Gmail contacts in your address book. Previously you were able to do this one-by-one but now you can do this in one fell swoop.
Yesterday Google launched their own url-shortening service called Goo.gl. The service currently works only with Google’s Feedburner service and with the Google Toolbar.
If the service proves useful, we may eventually make it available for a wider audience in the future.
On a side note, Facebook has quietly launched it’s own url-shortening service called http://FB.me.
Ustream and Qik are two live streaming services that allow users to stream events to the web as they happen. Both of these services are now available on the iPhone and Qik is available on Google Android and other platforms like the Blackberry.
Why is this cool? So say we have an Idealist volunteer event and we want to share it with people that can’t come. We can stream the event live from an iPhone or an Android phone.
In Iran right now, there are protests still going on over the election from last June. If protesters could find a way to connect to the web without being censored, they could stream the actions of the Iranian Basij forces to the rest of the world.
Very powerful technology!
Socialware
Many companies and governmental agencies have difficulty deciding between granting staff access to social networks for work purposes or flatly granting no access. Many administrators see social media as a time waster while others see it as a tool for productivity.
Socialware aims to change this by allowing IT admins to block only certain features on networking sites as opposed to blocking the entire site.
For example “users may access LinkedIn but there may be features that the employee is not permitted to access. The feature is flagged with a message that tells the user they do not have permission to use it.”
Hopefully this will increase social media engagement in the professional work environment. I’m curious to see how this will effect site traffic and media promotion.
Microsoft Pivot
Microsoft Pivot is a platform that allows users to interact with large sets of data on both a micro and macro scale using an intuitive and visual approach.
You can quickly sort through very large sets of data, from Kiva loans to magazine covers to Wikipedia articles, Pivet allows the user to search, dissect and manipulate collections quickly and easily.
This tool is very powerful but difficult to really appreciate until you see the video. Check it out -
For example, if you search for [restaurant reviews antwerp] while on vacation in Belgium and want to find more reviews or review sites beyond those that are just available in English, select “Translate search” in the “Show Options” panel. We’ll automatically select French and Dutch (the languages spoken in Belgium), translate your query into these languages and then translate the results back into English for you to read. If you’d like to search specific languages, just modify the languages in the panel above the results. You can display results for up to five languages at once and select from 51 languages to search.
