If you can't remember the URL of a site you've once visited, what do you do? You can either scour your history, willing the evasive address to remain listed, or you can search in Google by the keywords you remember and hope the site you want floats near the top of the results.
The latest version of Opera Software's 9.5 Beta browser, released Thursday for Windows, Mac, and Linux, makes fishing for past Web addresses much easier with a new feature called Quick Find.
Can't remember a URL? The Quick Find feature pulls up suggestions based on keyword.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Quick Find essentially bundles the keyword search directly into the Opera browser's address field. Typing in a few keywords produces a list of URLs from your past. Simply clicking the selection opens the Web page. I tested it out, and so far it works as advertised--as a fast, useful time-saver that gives your brain license to forget specific URLs.
Those familiar with Opera Mini will recognize Quick Find as the sister to the "find in page" feature in Opera Mini 4.1.
There are other updates to the beta build, but Quick Find remains the only new feature that users will engage with directly. The official Opera announcement also unveils faster e-mail rendering for its built-in client, support for EV (extended validation) SSL certificates, and more complete antiphishing protection thanks to collaboration with PhishTank and NetCraft's databases.
Then there's the unofficial announcement, leaked by Huib Kleinhout, Opera's desktop team manager, on Opera's blog. Through Opera Link, users will soon be able to synchronize notes in real time between Opera browsers for desktops, mobile phones, and devices.
That feature is in development, an Opera representative contact confirmed, and has not been released in this morning's build. For now, Opera Link behaves as it has been, populating each Opera browser you use (desktop, cell phone, Wii) with bookmarks added from any other.
OK, Mike McCue, CEO of recently-acquired-by-Microsoft Tellme: Tell me again why your brand new mobile phone app--the cool one that lets you speak a business name or category into the phone and then gives you nearest matches on your screen--is out first for the BlackBerry, and not Windows Mobile?
As McCue explained it to me, Tellme had the BlackBerry app well into development when Microsoft acquired his company. But why BlackBerry at all? Because it's a better platform for Java, which the app is built on, than is Windows Mobile.
Push to talk.
Of course, Tellme will build a Windows Mobile version of the new app eventually. And in fact, McCue hopes that Tellme's functionality is embedded deeply into the next major release of Windows Mobile (version 7). But that's not coming too soon since Microsoft only just shipped Windows Mobile 6.
As to this new BlackBerry app: It is very strong. You can assign a button on your smartphone to it, and then just it hold it down, speak a directory lookup, like "coffee" or "Nordstrom," and the phone's screen displays the closest matches to you, based on your GPS location. Then you can select an option to call the location, map it, get directions, or share the link with someone else.
You can also speak a movie title or ask for a weather forecast. Sports scores are coming soon. So is the capability to look up names and numbers from your phone's directory, or your Outlook contacts list.
All the processing and rendering, including the voice recognition itself, happens on Tellme's servers, not on your phone. So you get fast and accurate responses--assuming you have a fast connection.
The interface is miles ahead of Microsoft's current smartphone app, Live Search Mobile. Tellme technology also powers the voice recognition in that app, but the interface is confusing and involved. Tellme, meanwhile, is moving towards simplifying its UI even further, aiming for what McCue calls the "60 mile-per-hour interface," the mobile phone lookup user experience that's safe to use while driving. For all our sakes, I hope Tellme gets that right.
If I had to describe LightPole in 10 words or fewer, I'd call it an interface for accessing location-aware services from mobile phones. More than anything else, LightPole's downloadable application offers a listings and mapping format that many location-based services, such as Yelp and Yahoo Local, can squeeze into to gain more visibility or avoid creating their own rich cell phone applications.
I added the CNET News.com channel; the rest are LightPole's.
(Credit: CNET Networks)It works like this. Users looking for stuff--a good restaurant, happy hour specials, or Internet cafe--can click open LightPole, select a service (MappyHour and Hotspotr are two more,) and can read about the establishment, call the establishment, and map the results.
New customization features, announced Wednesday, make the application heaps more appealing to the masses because it lets users do what users like to do best--add their own content by creating channels online.
From LightPole's Web site, you input any RSS feed or site URL corresponding to geotagged content into the blank field to transform it into a channel. A Google map and Flickr stream are two examples. A few more clicks and a manual phone update later and the content is ready to access. I'll admit that mapping the CNET News.com feed was a little useless (CNET headquarters doesn't move around much,) but I like the flexibility and relative ease of relying on LightPole's partnerships for my most-wanted content.
Two other announcements join ranks with the news of the now-open channels. LightPole's integration with Yahoo-owned Fire Eagle, a nexus for managing your location information. This integration lets registered users of other Fire Eagle-supported location services, Loki for example, post their whereabouts. LightPole will pick it up from there.
In a final enhancement, two of LightPole's partners, MappyHour and Hotspotr, have added functionality that lets users add favorite happy hour lairs and Internet cafes to the communities' Web sites from the LightPole application. There are still some usability hitches (a few too many menus and clicks for my taste,) but these second helpings already make LightPole more useful.
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