When WebProNews hit Vegas for the CES 2010 conference, we came across a number of new and interesting gadgets.

The MakerBot’s CupCake CNC is a 3D printer/fabricator that can make just about anything you want. As long as the object you desire can be made out of ABS plastic and stays in a size range of 4″x4″x6".

Once the design is input using 3D modeling software or by visiting Thingiverse for a pre-made template, MakerBot turns the creation into reality. The machine begins ‘printing’ and soon after, a 3D model of the design requested materializes right before your eyes.

These 3D fabricators are priced between $750-$950 and have qualities that even attracted major companies like Google. The MakerBot representatives stated Google has invested in multiple CupCake CNCs.  For what?  We can only wonder….
 

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Google announced today that is planning to build and test "ultra high-speed" broadband networks in a small number of trial locations around the U.S. This means Google will deliver Internet speeds of 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to now, according to the company.

Google says it has the following things in mind:

• Next generation apps: We want to see what developers and users can do with ultra high-speeds, whether it’s creating new bandwidth-intensive "killer apps" and services, or other uses we can’t yet imagine.
• New deployment techniques: We’ll test new ways to build fiber networks, and to help inform and support deployments elsewhere, we’ll share key lessons learned with the world.
• Openness and choice: We’ll operate an "open access" network, giving users the choice of multiple service providers. And consistent with our past advocacy, we’ll manage our network in an open, non-discriminatory and transparent way.

"Like our WiFi network in Mountain View, the purpose of this project is to experiment and learn," says the company says. "Network providers are making real progress to expand and improve high-speed Internet access, but there’s still more to be done. We don’t think we have all the answers – but through our trial, we hope to make a meaningful contribution to the shared goal of delivering faster and better Internet for everyone."

Google is putting out a request for information to help identify communities that are interested. They’re taking responses until March 26. Then they’ll announce the chosen communities. We’re awaiting response from Google on the criteria for how communities will be chosen.
 

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If any organization knows how to innovate, it’s Google; this week alone, the company discussed phones that would translate languages in real time, unveiled a Street View snowmobile, and announced its intention to test ultra high-speed broadband networks.  It may make sense, then, that CEO Eric Schmidt has tried to address America’s "innovation deficit."

Schmidt wrote an editorial for The Washington Post, and in it, outlined five ways to address said deficit.  (Schmidt also noted that Commerce Secretary Gary Locke coined the term.)  All of his suggestions were rather interesting.

First, Schmidt stated, "[S]tart-ups and smaller businesses must be able to compete on equal terms with their larger rivals. . . .  Congress should ensure that every bill it passes promotes competition over protecting the interests of incumbents."

He then recommended tolerating failure as long as something can be learned from it, and on a related note, extending a research and development tax credit.

Next, the CEO wrote, "[I]nformation must become even more open and accessible."  Schmidt put forward the idea of government-funded research being made public through a Wikipedia-like resource, and asked the government support broadband, too.

Lastly, he stressed, "[W]e need to hang on to talented people.  The best and brightest from around the world come to study at U.S. universities.  After graduation, they are forced to leave because they can’t get visas.  It’s ridiculous to export such talent to our competition."

At least a couple of these ideas are sure to prove controversial.  Yet due to Google’s growing influence in Washington – along with its success in so many areas – Schmidt’s recommendations are almost guaranteed to reach the ears of some important people.

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After a seven-week-long hiatus, Google is now hosting content from the Associated Press again. The two have had a deal in place in the past, but AP content quietly went missing from Google, and that very fact became a topic of wide discussion last week. Now the deal appears to be renewed to some uncertain extent.

The statement Google has given on the matter says, "We have a licensing agreement with the Associated Press that permits us to host its content on Google properties such as Google News. The licensing agreement is the subject of ongoing discussion so we won’t be commenting further at this time."

An AP spokesman is quoted as saying, "We have nothing to add to Google’s statement."

If you’ve followed the online news industry much, we probably don’t have to tell you that Google and the AP have had a somewhat complicated, if not rocky relationship.

Last week, Yahoo reached its own deal with the AP. Financial terms of that agreement were not disclosed.

This week, the AP promoted editor and correspondent Ted Anthony to Assistant Managing Editor. He is said to have been involved in the development of the news organization’s social media practices.

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More evidence that Google and Microsoft remain very interested in China has surfaced.  Both companies have struck deals with MediaTek, a semiconductor company that specializes in wireless communications, and said deals should help them make headway in China’s mobile market.

Dan Nystedt reported earlier today, "MediaTek has already developed a chipset and other hardware for Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6 operating system and has sent the package. . . .to handset makers in China so they can start designing new Windows Mobile smartphones, a MediaTek representative said."  Also, "MediaTek will release a similar hardware and software package with Google’s Android mobile phone OS in the second half of this year . . ."

Microsoft’s move may not qualify as much of a surprise.  Over the past month, Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates have both made statements to the effect that they weren’t troubled by recent hacking claims involving China.  Microsoft’s agreement with MediaTek was actually announced by a press release, too.

It’s Google’s involvement with MediaTek that is a little unexpected.  Google more or less threatened to pull out of China, after all, and while it’s normally much more communicative than Microsoft, the company hasn’t yet put together any press releases or blog posts about this.

China’s mobile market no doubt represents an opportunity for all three of these organizations to make a lot of money, in any event.

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More evidence that Google and Microsoft remain very interested in China has surfaced.  Both companies have struck deals with MediaTek, a semiconductor company that specializes in wireless communications, and said deals should help them make headway in China’s mobile market.

Dan Nystedt reported earlier today, "MediaTek has already developed a chipset and other hardware for Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6 operating system and has sent the package. . . .to handset makers in China so they can start designing new Windows Mobile smartphones, a MediaTek representative said."  Also, "MediaTek will release a similar hardware and software package with Google’s Android mobile phone OS in the second half of this year . . ."

Microsoft’s move may not qualify as much of a surprise.  Over the past month, Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates have both made statements to the effect that they weren’t troubled by recent hacking claims involving China.  Microsoft’s agreement with MediaTek was actually announced by a press release, too.

It’s Google’s involvement with MediaTek that is a little unexpected.  Google more or less threatened to pull out of China, after all, and while it’s normally much more communicative than Microsoft, the company hasn’t yet put together any press releases or blog posts about this.

China’s mobile market no doubt represents an opportunity for all three of these organizations to make a lot of money, in any event.

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eBay said today it is launching a new offering called "Garden by eBay," an area on the site that will allow members to test new features and provide feedback for improvements and changes.

Garden by eBay is an opt-in initiative with a concept that is similar to Google Labs where users can test and experiment with different features before they are officially released.

eBay says that Garden members’ feedback will be provided directly to the teams that manage new, proposed or existing features. The goal is to bring buyers and sellers into the process and help the company introduce, test and roll out features faster.

The first major feature to be introduced is a new "streamlined search" aimed at making it easier to browse and view search results. Streamlined search offers a cleaner view of inventory, and better ways for buyers to browse items. Users can compare auction and Buy It Now listings side-by-side, refine their searches with fewer clicks, get an at-a-glance view of an item’s name, price and format and view same-screen pop-up windows for item detail.

"The new Garden by eBay represents a new collaborative conversation with the eBay community-a chance to listen to their thoughts on upcoming features, and to bring them closer to our own innovation process," said Christopher Payne, eBay vice president of search.

"And by seeding the Garden with streamlined search, we’re asking for the community’s input on improving one of the most important areas of eBay.com."
 

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eBay said today it is launching a new offering called "Garden by eBay," an area on the site that will allow members to test new features and provide feedback for improvements and changes.

Garden by eBay is an opt-in initiative with a concept that is similar to Google Labs where users can test and experiment with different features before they are officially released.

eBay says that Garden members’ feedback will be provided directly to the teams that manage new, proposed or existing features. The goal is to bring buyers and sellers into the process and help the company introduce, test and roll out features faster.

The first major feature to be introduced is a new "streamlined search" aimed at making it easier to browse and view search results. Streamlined search offers a cleaner view of inventory, and better ways for buyers to browse items. Users can compare auction and Buy It Now listings side-by-side, refine their searches with fewer clicks, get an at-a-glance view of an item’s name, price and format and view same-screen pop-up windows for item detail.

"The new Garden by eBay represents a new collaborative conversation with the eBay community-a chance to listen to their thoughts on upcoming features, and to bring them closer to our own innovation process," said Christopher Payne, eBay vice president of search.

"And by seeding the Garden with streamlined search, we’re asking for the community’s input on improving one of the most important areas of eBay.com."
 

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Google is rumored to be working on a Facebook/Twitter-like feature for Gmail. According to the Wall Street Journal, who cites "people familiar with the matter", the feature, which would "make it easier and faster" to share status updates may launch as soon as this week.

As I’ve written about a number of times, Google is really one big social network with a bunch of features, and integration is the key to harnessing that social power. A product like this could be just the ticket, because according to these same sources, it would integrate content shared through YouTube and Picasa. Who knows what else could be worked in?

Gmail currently has status updates of a sort. In the chat section, it has a menu of your contacts who also use Google, and shows their current status of they have one set. You can set one easily at any time.

Google has not yet responded to requests for comments, but if we learn more, we will keep you updated.

If Gmail offers its own Facebook/Twitter-style timeline, would you use it? Should Facebook and Twitter be worried? Share your thoughts.
 

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If you think about it, it’d be slightly inaccurate to say that phones let people all over the world communicate with each other; current tech just transmits sounds, not their significance.  But Google’s looking to knock down language barriers with devices that will perform translations on the fly.

This isn’t some poorly sourced rumor or random conspiracy theory.  Chris Gourlay interviewed Franz Och, Google’s head of translation services, and Och said, "We think speech-to-speech translation should be possible and work reasonably well in a few years’ time."

Incredible as that might seem, the building blocks are already in place.  Android allows users to perform searches by just saying terms out loud.  Google Translate deals in 52 languages at the moment.  Google only needs to integrate everything in order to be in business.  Maybe.

The sentence "I am going to eat lunch at 12:30" becomes "I’m going to lunch at 12:30" after Google Translate takes it from English to Spanish and back.  That’s enough of a difference to create confusion (suppose someone’s trying to distinguish between stuffing his face and stepping out to run errands), and it’s not like Spanish is a rare dialect or the original phrase represents a curveball.

Toss in imperfect speech recognition, and it’s hard to imagine anyone trying to conduct important business or even chat for fun.

Nonetheless, it should be very interesting to see how this project works out for Google.

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Google is rumored to be working on a Facebook/Twitter-like feature for Gmail. According to the Wall Street Journal, who cites "people familiar with the matter", the feature, which would "make it easier and faster" to share status updates may launch as soon as this week.

As I’ve written about a number of times, Google is really one big social network with a bunch of features, and integration is the key to harnessing that social power. A product like this could be just the ticket, because according to these same sources, it would integrate content shared through YouTube and Picasa. Who knows what else could be worked in?

Gmail currently has status updates of a sort. In the chat section, it has a menu of your contacts who also use Google, and shows their current status of they have one set. You can set one easily at any time.

Google has not yet responded to requests for comments, but if we learn more, we will keep you updated.

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If you think about it, it’d be slightly inaccurate to say that phones let people all over the world communicate with each other; current tech just transmits sounds, not their significance.  But Google’s looking to knock down language barriers with devices that will perform translations on the fly.

This isn’t some poorly sourced rumor or random conspiracy theory.  Chris Gourlay interviewed Franz Och, Google’s head of translation services, and Och said, "We think speech-to-speech translation should be possible and work reasonably well in a few years’ time."

Incredible as that might seem, the building blocks are already in place.  Android allows users to perform searches by just saying terms out loud.  Google Translate deals in 52 languages at the moment.  Google only needs to integrate everything in order to be in business.  Maybe.

The sentence "I am going to eat lunch at 12:30" becomes "I’m going to lunch at 12:30" after Google Translate takes it from English to Spanish and back.  That’s enough of a difference to create confusion (suppose someone’s trying to distinguish between stuffing his face and stepping out to run errands), and it’s not like Spanish is a rare dialect or the original phrase represents a curveball.

Toss in imperfect speech recognition, and it’s hard to imagine anyone trying to conduct important business or even chat for fun.

Nonetheless, it should be very interesting to see how this project works out for Google.

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The governments of France, Germany, and Italy are all arguably annoyed with Google.  China’s not thrilled with the search giant, either.  And now, because of the way in which Google’s portrayed a disputed border, Cambodia’s quite mad at it.

According to Reuters, Svay Sitha, the secretary of state of Cambodia’s Council of Ministers, wrote a letter to Google complaining about its interpretation of the area where Cambodia and Thailand touch.

"(The map) is devoid of truth and reality, and professionally irresponsible, if not pretentious," Sitha said.  "We therefore request that you withdraw the already disseminated, very wrong and not internationally recognised map and replace it.

Google probably won’t just swap in Cambodia’s favorite map and call it a day, of course; that would upset Thailand.  This isn’t the first time Google’s been caught up in a border dispute, though (China and India have involved it before, and so have India and Pakistan), meaning it’s possible to guess how this will play out.

The odds essentially favor Google coming up with three maps.  One will be for users in Cambodia, another will be for users in Thailand, and the last will be for everyone else.  The first two will show borders favoring their respective countries, while the third will use dotted lines to illustrate the dispute.

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Google is offering suggestions for "nearby places you might like" on Google Maps when you look up a place that you do like. So if you like a particular bakery, you might be presented with other places within the same vicinity that Google thinks you might also be interested in trying.

"When you live in New York City, everyone has an opinion on where to eat," says Tammy Stern of the Google Maps team. "And usually, telling someone a place you love will lead to a long conversation of a string of other places you should try. For example, one of the more interesting restaurants I’ve eaten at in NYC was recommended to me by someone who knew I loved a different restaurant by the same owner. And, when I told a friend I was heading to the Lower East Side to get some yummy knishes for lunch, he told me to make sure I checked out the famous Guss’ Pickles right around the corner and that I might consider picking up some smoked fish at Russ & Daughters down the street."

"You’ll notice that we do not limit these suggestions to places sharing any specific characteristic; instead, we use a broad set of signals to come up with what are hopefully the most interesting suggestions," says Stern. "We’re still working on refining these signals, so bear with us if your serendipitous discovery of a new place is even more unexpected than you’d anticipated."

This feature could have both positive and negative effects on local businesses. On the one hand, it could give established customers ideas to go to your competitors. On the other hand, you could be the competitor and benefit from that.

The suggestions are just the latest feature in a recent slew of local business-related features from Google. The company is clearly focusing a great deal on this aspect of search.
 

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