Right, I haven’t posted anything particularly interesting lately, so here’s a bit of a catch-up:

• Google Spreadsheets is released, albeit to a limited group - looks like an interesting AJAX app. Bit on the thin side by the looks of things, but then how many people use Excel for anything more complicated than accounts or modelling?
• Portsmouth is set to become the first city in the UK to implement a city-wide 20mph speed limit.
• Windows Vista Beta 2 is now generally available - although it looks like their servers are swamped!
• The Tories could be offering spaces to bloggers at their annual conferences (nothing new - see also 2004 US Elections, but still something to keep track of)
• For those of you that are interested, the Blogtalk conference this year is Oct 2-3 at Vienna in Austria. I went a couple of years ago - it was a great conference and the city is gorgeous! Still in two minds about this year though.
• In other news I have just returned from a canal holiday. Photos soon!

Google currently support Flash and image ads (as well as the usual text ads) - now they’re adding Video ads to their options. It’s an interesting addition - doesn’t seem overly intrusive (as long as they don’t play automatically, which they currently don’t).

Google have always had a reasonably decent translation tool squirreled away on their website, and most recently they have added translations from English to Chinese Simplified, Arabic, Japanese and Korean.

The closest thing I get to a reliability metric is to paste a block of text in English, translate it, translate it back, and compare the generated text to the original. The first block of text I grabbed was from Skype’s website:

Skype Zones BETA is a little piece of software powered by Boingo that gives you access to Skype through thousands of Skype-friendly hot spots, while you’re on the move. So now when you’re at your favourite café or waiting quietly at the airport, you don’t have to count the tic-tac of your watch, instead you can just talk to your friends on Skype.

Translated to Chinese Simplified:

SkypeBETA区是一小片的动力Boingo软件,使您获得通过SkypeSkype数千友善的热点,同时进乔迁. 现在没事做在静静等待你喜爱的餐厅或机场,你必须要有算议会-交通咨询委员会你看,你刚才不是跟你的朋友就Skype.

And back again:

SkypeBETA district is a small piece of motivation Boingo software to enable you passed SkypeSkype thousands of friendly hot and chin on the move. With nothing better to do now at the airport waiting for your favorite restaurant or, you must have a Parliament-the Transport Advisory Committee you can see, you just do not like your friends on Skype.

Interesting outcome - definitely not a reliable measure, but it’s interesting to see where the meanings are being mangled.

Thought: By using DMOZ-based descriptions in their search results, shouldn’t Google be posting the standard DMOZ attribution notice at the bottom of their pages?

In a moment of schadenfreude (I’ve been waiting for an excuse to use that word for a while) I wondered if there’d be any visible car accidents on Google Earth. You’d think the M25 would be a good start, but alas London’s greatest motorway is strangely devoid of incidents (and traffic for that matter).

In fact, the M25 is clear. The M4 is clear east of the A34 junction (I got bored after that, and the M27 is clear. I can only imagine they took the pictures on weekends anyway, because the motorways are usually busier than that (maybe the satellites are used for spying on other things during the week?)

Maybe the editorial team make a point of checking for accidents? It’s the same kind of action they take on motorway webcams when there’s a crash. ‘Down for maintenance’ - yeah right.

I wouldn’t want you to think I’m sick and twisted by the way - more curious