NI-Limits Blog

There can be no denying that Google News is always the most interesting of news, simply proven by the following updates, which all start with an ever-interesting experiment by Google using Flex and Flash as an alternative engine for search.

Go check-out SearchMash Flash today! Or read more from TechCrunch:

When you mouse over a search result, you get a Snap Shot preview of the Web page in a pane on the right. The Snap Shots are powered by Bill Gross’ search engine Snap.com. (We use Snap Shots on outside links, as do two million other Websites).

Flash is so pretty, but can it truly be as fast as Ajax? Maybe not, but it is getting fast enough for me. SearchMash is playing around with the search interface possibilities of each with two different versions of its site.

With web-based innovations such as these, it is even more amazing when you hear that Japanese manufacturer Matsushita (Panasonic) has signed a deal with Google that will see the company launch flat panel television sets that allow users to access YouTube and other Google services such as Picasa Web Albums - as reported by TechCrunch:

The deal is said to be non-exclusive with the first units set to be launched in the United States in Spring. The deal isn’t the first internet enabled television to be manufactured, but it is the first time Google has signed a deal in this space. Internet in the lounge room has long been a hyped technology that despite various platforms (including Windows MCE) has failed to capture the publics imagination, particularly given the need for a computer or internet specific device to connect.

TV with internet access built in, if it’s delivered without any major premium over existing television sets has the potential of finally delivering mass market convergence. Having YouTube access built into sets as a default would also be a positive for Google as it continues to work towards strengthen YouTube’s long term dominance in light of increased competition.

It is no surprise that TechCrunch informs us of the following:

In the 1990s, we loved to tally up the number of Microsoft millionaires. Now, it’s Google’s turn. The New York Times cites estimates that there are 1,000 Google employees whose stock grants and options are worth more than $5 million. So there are more than 1,000 Google millionaires, including Google’s former masseuse, Bonnie Brown.

By that’s just one thousand employees… What do the over 15,000 do…?

Webware have an excellent article that dives into the subject:

The company added 2,130 workers to its roster, bringing the head count to 15,916. What do nearly 16,000 people do at a company that doesn’t make widgets (at least in the hardware manufacturing sense of the word)…?

That’s an average of about 35 people showing up for their first day of work each business day during the past three months. Granted, that is in offices around the world, but still, that’s impressive. By comparison, Yahoo has 13,600 employees, after hiring 1,200 during the past quarter. (Actually, when you think about it, that’s even more crazy given the need for Yahoo to retrench right now.)

“Half the company has been hired in the last 12 months. That’s chaotic,” he says. “The new employees find it difficult to figure out how to get things done. It’s not a normal company.”

With that many employees, TechCrunch goes-on to investigate the data that that equates too:

A recent white paper by some Google engineers puts some numbers around the massive amount of computation that Google does every day to index the Web, process search results, and serve up ads, among other things. As of last September, Google was processing 20,000 terabytes of data a day. This large-scale computing capability is a big part of Google’s competitive advantage over Yahoo, Microsoft, and everyone else.

If you liked that article, perhaps you will also like these...?

Highlights Reagarding The Search Giants (Google, Yahoo and Microsoft)

un-GrandCentral, The Amazon, Ocean Maps & Commercial Software