Archive: December, 2005

Microsoft announced a deal today to partner with Softbank BB and Japan Telecom to develop communication services that merge VoIP, e-mail, Internet access, instant messaging and more. Microsoft also recently signed a deal with MCI to implement VoIP service into Windows Live Messenger.

With the ever-increasing demand for VoIP, Microsoft is seeking to establish a stronger grasp on the VoIP market. The technologies at play include Microsoft’s Enhanced VoIP Services and Softbank’s BB’s broadband VoIP services, while Japan Telecom (a subsidiary of Softbank BB) is said to provide network infrastructure and management.

Tests are set to begin Spring, 2006. If successful, the service will be offered to business clients.

One of the warm but perhaps soon to be hot topics from the blogsphere right now centers on yet another lawsuit against Google, this time a patent infringement suit regarding VoIP (voice over IP). We caught wind of this tidbit from Gary Price at SearchEngineWatch , and followed the trail. The plaintiff, a company known as Rates Technology Inc., has filed suit in New York against Google for Google Talk’s VoIP.

Rates claims Google is using technology based on two patents Rates filed in 1995 and 2001. Rates is seeking enforcement of their patents, damages, an injunction against Google and attorney fees. Rates has a host of VoIP agreements with companies such as Nortek and Cisco.

But this isn’t the first time Rates has sued for patent infringement. In fact, according to Rich Tehrani of VoIP Blog, Rates Technology exists “to collect revenue from other companies… In total they have agreements in place with 700-800 companies and have litigated 25 times in 15 years.”

Court proceedings are said to begin February 3, 2006. We’ll have more on this story as it develops.

Last week (December 19th), San Francisco based blog search engine, Technorati, added a number of new features to its blog search. According to Dave Sifry, these improvements will “make Technorati easier to use and easier to understand.”

Here is a breakdown of items Technorati has implemented:

• Charts: You can now view charts that rate how many mentions per day a topic of interest has received within a 30 day time frame.
• Improved extracts: Technorati claims extracts are now easier to comprehend.
• Scoped search based on related tags: Tabs are now displayed below the search bar after a query is entered. This breaks a subject up into more categories so that users can better define relevancy. For instance, a search on U2 brings up the tabs All Blogs, Music, Bono, Conciertos, Live8 and Vertigo Tour.
• Enhanced profile information: Users’ profiles now contain more information about their blogs, and tag users can view a map of their most popular tags.
• More: There is also a ‘Blog Finder’ that helps users find out who’s blogging about topics of interest, revisions to the Popular widget, and a tag widget:

Google is now attempting to predict what you’re searching for before you’re finished searching. On December 22nd, the world leading search engine filed a patent application for its technology used by Google Suggest, which analyzes keystrokes and brings back a list of suggested terms in real time before a query is fully entered into the search bar.

According to Google, the idea behind Google Suggest is to make search queries faster, more relevant and personalized for the user. The technology works by sending a partial query to the engine as you begin typing, which then returns a dynamic list of terms gathered from a dictionary. It displays these terms in real time under the search bar in an endeavor to guess what you’re looking for. For example, while entering ‘prog’ into the search bar, the first three terms the algorithm returns include: progressive, progressive insurance and progeria. These top three terms then change to program files, programming, and programz when the ‘r’ is entered after the ‘g.’

The patent claims the technology works in a number of possible ways. Suggestions may stem from prior searches entered by a community of users, the current user’s profile, or cached search terms. Bill Slawski at Cre8asite Forum believes these terms originate from most popular searches, recent searches, hot topics, or cached terms. His blog on the subject can be found here.