I’m in the Apple Store at the CambridgSide Galleria with Kaija from work, showing her how easy WordPress is.
1-800-GOOG-411
Google has just launched Google Voice Local Search, and experimental phone-based search system.
According to the website:
Google Voice Local Search is Google’s experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone.
To try this service, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.
Using this service, you can:
- search for a local business by name or category.
You can say “Giovanni’s Pizzeria” or just “pizza”.
- get connected to the business, free of charge.
- get the details by SMS if you’re using a mobile phone.
Just say “text message”.
I’ve tried it out a few times, and it seems to work alright. The system was down for a while, but that’s to be expected with a service that’s less than a week old.
To hear a test call, listen to the MP3 below. Here’s the text message I got from Google during the call:
Subject: Burger King
Burger King
128 Tremont St
Boston, MA 02108
617-556-8299
100 Million iPods
Yesterday, Apple announced that 100 million iPods have been sold since the release of the original 5GB iPod on November 10th, 2001.
That’s an average of 50,607 per day (or a bit better than one every two seconds).
For comparison, Sony sold about 150 million Walkman cassette players between 1979 and 1995 (when they started to die off in favor of the Discman CD Player). That’s 50% more Walkman players in 16 ½ years than the iPods sold the less than 5 ½ years they have been on the market.
In the original press release announcing the iPod in 2001, Steve Jobs was quoted as saying:
“With iPod, Apple has invented a whole new category of digital music player that lets you put your entire music collection in your pocket and listen to it wherever you go. With iPod, listening to music will never be the same again.â€
It sure looks like he was right.
Congratulations, Apple!
Watch President Bush Make a Fool of Himself
A year ago, my approval rating was in the 30s, my nominee for the Supreme Court had just withdrawn, and my Vice President had shot someone. Ah, those were the good ol’ days.
– President Bush, at the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association dinner
Watch him (badly) tell jokes someone else so obviously wrote below:
I changed the MBTA
I went to an MBTA public meeting a couple of months ago and voiced this concern about the new CharlieCard vending machines:
The credit card readers don’t have a clear indication of the correct placement of the magnetic strip in the slot, and they only give you three tries to pay before you have to start over. Since there are four possible ways to insert the card, this leads to frustrated customers.
The T representatives seemed genuinely surprised when I brought up the problem, and said that they would look into it.
Fast forward to today, and look what I found on the CharlieCard machine at the Charles/MGH station (I wonder if the Chase logo is product placement or trademark infringement):
