Macgasm

The New York Times has an awesome article and interview up on its website that features Stephen Wolfram, the founder of the search engine Wolfram Alpha. Perhaps not so surprisingly, Wolfram announced to the Times that Siri accounts for about 25 percent of all queries on Wolfram Alpha:

The quote has got me thinking a little bit about search engines and where that kind of technology is heading in the future. Aggregating results from the Internet and providing results to the webizens isn’t something that’s going to disappear any time soon, but the way we interact with a search engine is changing dramatically. With spam results both from SEO spammers and Google prioritizing its own results within a search, honest, unbiased, and valuable results are rarely being prioritized on the native Google search results page these days. Siri, and by extension, any application, can reach out and take advantage of multiple search databases, and provide users with relevant results, without ever having to visit the Wolfram Alpha website, or Google.

The steps taken by Apple to get Siri access to important information is pretty genius, and it’s undoubtably redefining the way we use search engines and get results. Instead of relying on one source, like Google, for all of your results, Siri could reach out to different services to gain access to search results. For instance, looking for a new music album? Siri could reach out to iTunes or Spotify, or any other service of your choice. Looking to rent a new movie? Siri could return results from Netflix. Want to read some new Apple news? Hell, Siri could reach out to Macgasm and search our database for results. In every one of these cases it would be almost impossible for SEO spammers to game the system for better search results, and in every one of these cases, Siri would get more accurate results directly from a service that specializes in the information Siri is looking for instead of relying on generalized services like Google. Siri is already reaching out to Yelp for its restaurant location-based recommendations, what’s to stop it from doing something similar for other popular requests in music, film, or news?

Apple is actually directly competing with Google doing what it does best, piecing together existing technologies into a more intuitive and usable service. Search just got a whole lot more interesting, if you ask us.

Read Wolfram, a Search Engine, Finds Answers Within Itself on The New York Times

Beers are good; free beers are even better. There’s a first world problem that needs solving though: have you ever wanted to buy beers for friends but couldn’t actually make it to the bar to do it? Yup, big problem. Turns out there’s an app for that and it’s called Buddy Beers.

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The AndrewMFilms group has put together a hilarious video of Siri going absolutely psychotic, killing people. No, seriously. Killing people. No joke. Siri is now a certifiable psychopath. Screw Chucky. Siri’s my new nightmare.

Check out the fun video.

Chalk one up for patents stifling innovation. Honeywell has filed a lawsuit again Nest and Best Buy for infringing on some of its thermostat technologies. Yay.

According to a press release filed by Honeywell, seven patents are being infringed upon:

• U.S. Patent No. 7,634,504 – “Natural Language Installer Set Up for Controller”
• U.S. Patent No. 7,142,948 – “Controller Interface with Dynamic Schedule Display”
• U.S. Patent No. 7,584,899 – “HVAC Controller”
• U.S. Patent No. 7,159,789 – “Thermostat with Mechanical User Interface”
• U.S. Patent No. 7,159,790 – “Thermostat with Offset Drive”
• U.S. Patent No. 7,476,988 – “Power Stealing Control Devices”
• U.S. Patent No. 6,975,958 – “Profile Based Method for Deriving a Temperature Setpoint Using a ‘Delta’ Based On Cross-Indexing a Received Price-Point Level Signal.”

Beth Wozniak, president of Honeywell, has gone on the record stating: “Competition is good and we welcome it, but we will not stand by while competitors, large or small, offer products that infringe on our intellectual property … From our iconic ’round thermostat’ to the first programmable and simple-to-use touch screen thermostats, Honeywell is known for setting the standard in home comfort and energy efficiency.”

We’re all for companies and lawyers protecting intellectual property, but at some point we all need to sit down and figure out whether or not this patent system is doing more damage to innovation than it’s worth. We’re pumped about the Nest. Heck, we’ve even done a review on it. Sadly, I can’t say the same for Honeywell.

There’s still no Siri in the iPhone 4, and if we’re reading a report on CNET correctly, there’s a good chance that the Siri technology won’t be introduced to older iPhone models any time soon.

According to CNET, Audience, a company responsible for a chip in the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S that reduces voice noise, has a newer chip in the iPhone 4S called “EarSmart” that makes Siri possible.

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What crashes more, iOS apps or Android apps? That’s the question being asked by Crittercism these days in its study that spanned 23 iOS operating system versions and 33 Android versions.

The results may not be what you would expect:

The study ran from December 1st through until December 15th, and shows that iOS isn’t as stable as its Android counterpart. There are some points of note, however, that should be discussed further in the future when talking about the stability of iOS and Android applications. First, iOS 5.01 was responsible for 28.64 percent of all crashes in the study. It’s not uncommon for applications on a new operating system to become unstable once a major new OS is released. That being said, iOS 4.2.1, and iOS 5.0 are both responsible for over 4 percent of all crashes, and iOS 4.1 weighed in at 8.24 percent of all crashes in the Critterrcism study.

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Datacolor, the creators of the Spyder color calibrating device for monitors and televisions, has released an iOS application to assist in color correcting your photos on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.

In a bit of a twist, Datacolor is not calibrating the display on your iOS device like you would expect; instead, the Spyder calibrating tool determines the color profile of your iOS device, and then color corrects your photos using the SpyderGallery application. A Spyder device is required for the color correction, so if you don’t have one, you’ll have to purchase one.

It’s an interesting solution to the lack of display calibration granularity available in iOS. Given the possibilities of using the iPad as a portfolio viewing medium for photographers, designers, and artists, it’s a little disappointing that the iPad display can’t be color calibrated.

Jailbreaker, and Cydia Store developer Adam Bell has created an application, called Overflow, that customizes your iOS dock, and turns it into something a little more Coverflow-esque.

In order to get the entire benefit from the tweak, you’ll need to install another tweak that lets you put more applications in your dock than normal. We recommend checking out Chpwn’s Infinidock to get that done.

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