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Delivering on its promise, Google released a new mobile application on Wednesday that brings its Voice Search feature to BlackBerrys, much like it did for the iPhone and Android-based
T-Mobile G1.

(Sources: Google Mobile Blog, Information Week)

The Google Mobile App is available now as a free download and allows you to conduct searches with the sound of your voice. To do so, you simply hold down the Talk button on your BlackBerry and then speak your search term into the phone. Brits, you’ll also be happy to hear that the app now supports British English accents.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Bonnie Cha/CNET)

Other enhancements include shortcuts to several Google services, such as Gmail, Maps, News, and Reader. To get Google Mobile App on your BlackBerry, you can point your phone’s browser to http://m.google.com or enter your mobile number here. Be aware that the app requires you have to have BlackBerry OS 4.1 or higher and BlackBerry OS 4.2 or higher for Voice Search.

Perhaps even more powerful, the app also includes support for Google’s My Locations feature, which brings up search results based on your location as determined by your BlackBerry’s GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular triangulation.

Regarding micropayments, I’m not convinced anyone has entirely figured out how to deal with them. There is no PayPal for video games, and while some social applications have been successful with micropayments such as buying friends on Facebook, it’s not clear that users want or need the function delivered in that manner.

Megatrend III - Increasingly believable universes
Luban points out several areas where we’ll see innovation. I would suspect that the immediate limitations are on the consoles/PCs themselves at the moment. Though it’s hard to say how much more graphic power will be available over the next few years.

Megatrend II - The emergence of fast gaming, and games relying on micropayments
Fast gaming aligns with casual gaming wherein the player is making a minimal investment for immediate return. Think flash games or widgets.

Pascal Luban, the general manager of The Game design Studio is writing a series about “megatrends” in gaming. It’s interesting to see how much Internet connectivity has brought to the world of gaming and how so much of the future is based on the need to be connected.

Included will be real-time impact of atmospheric effects,
automatic integration of character animation with the environment,
and completely interactive environments.

Overall, there are some interesting trends emerging as video games continue to blur the online/offline world of game play and interaction.

Megatrend I - The necessity of increasing the commercial life span of games
At the core of the capability to increase commercial lifespan is Internet connectivity. The ability to download new content or play against others online extends the lifespan and the potential audiences.

Founded in Austria but now headquartered in Silicon Valley, Jajah has amassed 10 million users in two years of operation; Yahoo Messenger boasts 97 million users but has not released data on how many of them pay for premium voice services. Terms of the deal between the two companies were not disclosed.

Under the agreement, Jajah will start providing the service for Yahoo’s “Phone In” and “Phone Out” features, which allow members to make calls to landline and mobile phones, starting in the third quarter of 2008. Yahoo’s telephony option is a paid service; Jajah will be responsible for processing the payments, and providing customer support and the network infrastructure.

Yahoo announced on Tuesday that it’s no longer going to power Yahoo Messenger’s Internet telephony service with in-house technology: the company has inked a deal with start-up Jajah to replace its phone-to-PC and PC-to-phone communications.

Jajah’s calling rates to and from the United States are about 2.9 cents per minute.

Last year, Jajah introduced an option to let users place calls without using their computers. It has partnered with would-be rival Jangl to take on bigger voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) players like eBay’s Skype.

So it was with considerable pride that Activision’s wholly owned Infinity Ward studio told me Tuesday that its war game, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, has just sold its 10 millionth copy.

But, COD 4 still has some juice left. He suggested that the game is still selling, that it’s map pack add-on has sold 1.5 million copies, and that the main game itself is expected to sell a lot more copies this holiday season.

These days, monster hits like Grand Theft Auto IV and Halo 3 have gotten most of the media’s attention for best-sellers, but by reaching 10 million sold, there’s no doubt that COD 4 deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as any other title.

True or not, hats off to Infinity Ward on reaching a milestone few ever reach.

Well, with Guitar Hero III, Halo 3, and Grand Theft Auto IV inspiring record-setting sales in their own right, we might easily see a few more games reach the magic 10 million mark soon. And the next Call of Duty, COD 5, which is being produced by Tryarch, not Inifinity Ward, might see even bigger numbers.

There are few things that video game publishers–or any consumer products companies, for that matter–like more than reaching big, notable milestones.

Of course, one wonders how many more copies it would have sold had it been available on Nintendo’s
Wii. But Zampella said that Infinity Ward decided not to make the game for that console because “it just doesn’t fit on the Wii. We thought it would be compromised to be on (that) platform.”

And to be sure, it’s not the only game that has reached 10 million units moved–Infinity Ward said that COD 4 is one of “less than 10″ games to do so since 2000–but it’s still a notable milestone, especially when you consider that, at a sticker price of $60 a pop, even when considering that you can buy it for less at some retailers, Activision has raked in many hundreds of millions of dollars with the game.

Infinity Ward studio head Vince Zampella didn’t know exactly how many units the game had sold on each platform it is available on–the
Xbox 360,
PlayStation 3, and PC–but did say that COD 4 had been most successful on the Xbox.

Indeed, Zampella acknowledged that COD 4 has set the bar very high for his studio, and it’s hard to imagine Infinity Ward being able to come right back with another 10 million-seller.

On June 10, Geek Gestalt hits the highways for Road Trip 2008. I’ll start in Orlando, Fla., and visit many of the South’s most interesting destinations. Stay tuned, and be sure to keep up, both now and during the trip, with what I’m doing on Twitter.

Similar to Hayward’s idea, this new technology relies on our ability to identify objects in 3D instead of using alphanumeric characters. YUNiti’s 3D Captcha, however, has three objects in the challenge and extends the list of images to any object, not limiting it to animals as in Hayward’s idea. This increases the challenge’s level of complication to prevent computers from successfully making the correct guesses.

Marcos Boyington, co-founder and primary software engineer of YUNiTi.com, told CNET News that he and his brother came up with the idea without knowing of Taylor Hayward’s method. Boyington believes this was joint discovery of the same concept by people in different parts of the world. He said he is seeking contact with Hayward to talk about collaboration opportunities.

The newly implemented Captcha method that's based on 3D images.

I wrote a blog about a new way of creating Captchas by using 3D images that Taylor Hayward, a blogger, came up with and thought it would be really cool when implemented. Now, 3D Captchas seem to have become a reality–however, not from Hayward.

Incidentally, the folks at YUNiTi.com, a social Web site, have been working on the same idea for a few weeks and have implemented the method on their Web site.

I tried a new Captcha at the Web site and it worked very well. You just need to click on the placeholders for each object, then you are presented with a list of objects to choose from. After four mouse clicks, I passed the Captcha the very first time.

Captchas is short for Completely Automated Public Turing tests to tell Computers and Humans Apart. This is a way to make sure the input is not generated by a computer.

The site announced Wednesday that it has created a 3D Captcha method that is unbreakable by current computer technology, yet much easier for humans to identify.

(Credit:
Dong Ngo/CNET)

You can try the new Captcha by visiting YUNiTi.com.

The first time you activate Google Reader's offline mode, you're asked to give the service permission to store files on your PC.

I tried Gears with both Google Docs and Google Reader. The first time you visit Google Docs after you install Gears, you see a link labeled Offline in the top-right corner of the screen. Click it to open the Gears warning. After you allow the service to store information on your PC, the sync begins.

Maybe someday Google’s new patent will be able to improve the situation. Or maybe WiMax will finally be ready for prime time.

I need access to Gmail and a half-dozen other sites, but for now I’ll have to settle for stale Google Reader news feeds and my Google Docs files, plus a handful of other Web apps. These are the only sites I can access offline via Google Gears, a technology that lets Gears-enabled Web sites store information on your hard drive. That way, you can use the services even when your Internet link has gone south. Or at least that’s the idea. In reality, you’re still out of touch.

The top button in the resulting dialog box simply puts a shortcut on your desktop. The second button lets you disable the offline feature. There are also two links in the dialog: the top link opens a simple information page, while the bottom link displays technical information about the sync, including the files you’ve downloaded.

After you click Allow, the items in your feeds will be downloaded to your PC. The green downward arrow becomes a blue upward arrow, which means you’re in Reader’s offline mode. Click the arrow icon again to return to online mode.

(Credit:
Google)

You’ll find more information about using Gears for offline access at the Google Docs help site. Note that even though Google Spreadsheets is said not to work with Gears, my online spreadsheets were downloaded just the same.

Google Docs lets you access online files without a network link via the Google Gears technology.

I only know that when I’m on the road, I’ve got no way to get work done. While I wrestle with AT&T’s alleged support services, I’m stuck in the breakdown lane of the old info highway.

At present, Gears works with with Google Docs but not Spreadsheets or Presentations. You can view your Google Reader feeds offline, but you can’t get to your Gmail in-box or Google Calendar. Other sites that are said to support Gears are the WordPress blogging system, ZohoWriter word processor, and Remember the Milk info manager.

It’s nice to be able to access online files and news feeds without an Internet link, but what I really need is ubiquitous network access, which is what I thought I was getting with my 3G data link. Wireless data services simply aren’t reliable, and offline browsing is no substitute for real-time access to e-mail and Web sites.

Google Reader’s offline feature works a little differently. After you install Gears, you’ll see a green arrow icon in the top-right corner of the Reader window. The downward arrow indicates that you’re online. Click it to see a pop-up asking for permission to download data.

All I know is, what we have now just won’t do.

My laptop’s wireless 3G connection has been crapping out for over a week now. It works for a while, and then it quits. I don’t know why. I don’t know when it will be fixed, if ever.

(Credit:
Google)

The initial sync can take a few minutes, but the process is faster subsequently. The green check mark in the top-right of the Google Docs window indicates that you’re online. Click it and then click Settings to view your offline options.

You can watch a video of a similar attack conducted on work access cards.

Last week a Dutch researcher rode free on the London transit system, having hacked the public transit system’s card system; he used a clone of a paying passenger’s transit cards. His point? The transit smartcards, which are used my millions worldwide, are vulnerable to attack.

“You only have to walk down the street to see contactless access control systems everywhere,” Adam Laurie, a wireless security researcher, told the London Times . “It used to be a magnetic strip, now it’s a card held up to a reader on the wall. A large percentage of these will have Mifare technology and are very vulnerable to attack. They should all be replaced.”

In the United States, Boston’s Charlie transit card is based on the Mifare Classic technology. Mifare Classic is also used for transit systems or worker access in Hong Kong, Beijing, Madrid, Bangkok, and New Delhi.

The Mifare Classic is produced by NXP Semiconductors, a company based in the Netherlands. The encryption used in the cards has been shown to be broken. Newer Mifare cards, however, are more secure, but the Classic version remains popular, with over 500 million cards in use worldwide.

Once he obtained the key used by the London transit system, Dr. Jacobs then brushed up aside passengers carrying Oyster cards. Wirelessly, Jacobs collected the person’s card information on his laptop and later he was able to use that data to clone a fresh transit card and gain free access to the London transit system.

The Dutch government is already taking that advice. A ministry official told the Times that the government is replacing the cards of all 120,000 civil servants at central government level. A spokesperson for the London transit system downplayed the importance of Dr. Jacobs’ experiment and told the Times, “This was not a hack of the Oyster system. It was a single instance of a card being manipulated.”

Dr. Bart Jacobs of Radboud University in Holland used an ordinary laptop to show how to clone the Mifare Classic smartcard used in London’s Oyster transit card. The Mifare Classic smartcard is used for worker access cards as well.

(Credit:
Dan Farber/CNET News.com)

Benioff hopes to expand Salesforce’s platform business beyond its existing base of CRM customers to virtually any online business. It’s a bold move that puts Salesforce in direct competition with Microsoft, Amazon.com, and many other providers of cloud-computing services.

One early Visualforce customer, large European financial-software maker Coda, has written an accounting application called Coda2go using the tool that is based entirely on Force.com.

The tool is part of the company’s Summer ‘08 release of its applications.

“We have a message for IT. We didn’t have that when I started Salesforce.com. We had to figure out how to do this and prove that it works. Now we have to get face-to-face (with customers) to explain it,” he said.

Visualforce uses a concept called components to make application building easier. The company has made available components of the Salesforce user interface so that developers can reassemble them and combine them with new elements in their applications.

The new tool is a key part of the company’s platform-as-a-service business line, called Force.com. Salesforce, best known for its software-as-a-service customer relationship management (CRM) applications, is branching out into the business of providing cloud-computing services.

Salesforce.com on Wednesday said it has launched a new tool, Visualforce, that enables its customers to build custom user interfaces for applications running on the company’s hosted infrastructure.

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff and Google chief Eric Schmidt.

CEO Marc Benioff has said the platform-as-a-service business represents “Salesforce.com’s second decade….it’s our next area of investment.”

Visualforce, which Salesforce calls a “user interface as a service” tool, enables customized user interfaces to be created for any application developed on Force.com. Customers can use the tool to build applications that can be deployed through standard Web browsers or on mobile devices.

Salesforce has already partnered with Google, to offer Google Apps integrated into Salesforce’s applications, which could lead to a larger platform deal.

However, Benioff acknowledges the challenge of convincing customers, who know Salesforce only as an online CRM provider, that it can also be a trusted platform service. “It’s hand-to-hand combat, like the days of client-server computing,” he told me last month, while on a promotional tour for Force.com.

Mozilla hopes to set a world record for the most downloads within a 24-hour period on the day
Firefox 3 is released (currently expected to be in June).

The online edition of Guinness Book of World Records does not list a current record for most downloads within 24 hours.

To get people excited, Mozilla has provided a map showing pledges to date along with more details.

To help Mozilla set a world record, the foundation recommends the following:

Sign up to get the final copy of Firefox 3 on Download Day. Host a Download Day Fest on Firefox 3 launch day at your school, office, or anywhere with an Internet connection. Become a Firefox campus representative and collect pledges from fellow students.
Add Mozilla buttons and banners to your site, blog, or profile.

The final release candidates for Firefox 3 are showing a number of improvements, including greater rendering speed, the use of fewer resources, and more baked-in security features than other browsers.

On Tuesday Apple announced at the company’s “Let’s Rock” press gathering that NBC shows were returning to iTunes. A year ago, NBC yanked its show off iTunes over the issue of pricing. Following the press event Tuesday, JB Perrette, who runs NBC’s digital unit, told CNET that Apple’s increased flexibility on pricing led to agreement between the two companies.

NBC Universal executives have suggested that they agreed to start selling downloads of TV shows on iTunes only after being allowed more flexibility to set prices for its wares on iTunes. That’s just not correct, Eddy Cue, the vice president in charge of Apple’s iTunes Store, told CNET News on Wednesday evening.

“Frankly, ever since we dropped our relationship with Apple last fall, they have made a gradual progression culminating in (Tuesday’s announcement that NBC was returning to iTunes),” Perrette told CNET. “Originally, Apple had no film content (from the major motion picture studios) on the service because they were asking the film studios for years to accept a price that was below their DVD price.

This time around, NBC again was able to circulate it’s version of events before Apple.

And when it comes to packages, Cue said there have been packages on iTunes before.

Apple has taken issue with NBC’s claims that the media conglomerate was able to change pricing policy at Apple.

“We’ve never told anyone they can’t lower prices,” Cue said.

Cue disagreed that pricing policy has changed at iTunes.

Cue pointed out that while most TV shows sell for $1.99 on iTunes, retailers have always been allowed to sell videos for less. He said Viacom has offered many of its shows for 99 cents, including episodes of South Park and MTV’s The Hills. The History Channel has offered shows such as Ice Road Truckers and Ax Men

“Apple realized it wasn’t worth the fight anymore,” Perrette continued. “They were better off to just have the content. So they agreed to the pricing that was at least equal to the DVD pricing.”

“We’re glad to have NBC back and they are participating under the same terms with all of the other content providers.”

He said that NBC was given a chance to charge $2.99 for high-definition downloads of its TV shows and that it also could sell catalog titles for 99 cents or $1 less than the price for the vast majority of videos sold on iTunes. NBC would also, according to Perrette, be given the opportunity to bundle TV show compilations and sell them for whatever it wanted.

Cue said that the $2.99 price NBC is selling its HD content for is the same price for all HD content. “People can see (Showtime’s) Californication in HD live right now on the site,” Cue said.

Both Cue and Perrette say their companies are glad to be working together again, but what this disagreement over how NBC returned to iTunes illustrates is how the relationship continues to be a troubled one.

However, all of this was available at iTunes before the NBC deal was struck, according to Cue.

The two engaged in a public relations battle last year when NBC suggested that it wanted out of its iTunes contract. Apple fired back by accusing NBC of demanding that iTunes double prices of its content on the site.

“If you look at some of the things we’ve done for holidays,” Cue said, “we’ve had holiday packages with shows with the right themes. We’ve done things in the past with big name actors so we’ve packaged those things in the past.”