Google's mobile Product Search will alert you if an item that you are searching for

Want to buy the latest gadget - like, right now? Well, a new version of Google's mobile Product Search will alert you if an item that you are searching for is sitting in a nearby store just waiting to be purchased.

Google has teamed up with stores like Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West Elm to include information about their inventory in search results.

Looking for the latest point-and-shoot camera? Go to Google.com on your phone, tap "more" and then "Shopping." Do a search, and if the local Best Buy or Sears has that camera, a blue dot will appear next to the search results. Click on it and Product Search will tell you if it's in stock or has limited availability.

If you have enabled "My Location" or manually specified where you are, the app will also tell you how far away the stores are from where you are standing. The offering works on the iPhone, Palm WebOS phones, and Android devices in the U.S.

Google first demonstrated a preview version of this feature in December.

Twitter turned on its new geolocation feature

The microblogging site on Thursday night turned on its new geolocation feature, which allows you to tell the Twitterverse where you are when you tweet. The new feature, which is off by default, is only available to U.S. users right now, but should be rolled out in other countries fairly soon, according to Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.

"A recent burst of interest in location-sharing applications, games and services has many Twitter users excited about appending geographic data to some of their tweets," wrote Stone in a blog post. "People who choose to add this additional layer of context help make Twitter a richer information network for all of us -- location data can make tweets more useful."

By noting your location, Stone said it will be easier for other Twitter users to find information about their particular area or neighborhood.

"Let's say I'm at my office and I hear a loud boom," he added in his blog. "It sounded serious, so I search Twitter for "boom." Among the first results could be someone who tweeted "Boom go the fireworks!" This could be anywhere in the world. However, if that person had activated the new tweet location feature, then the neighborhood data under the tweet would read, SoMa [San Francisco's South of Market district]. Now, I know it's just fireworks going off in my neighborhood."

A user's location also will be linked to a Google map so followers can use that to further explore the area.

Late in January, Twitter launched its Local Trends feature, which was designed to help users find tweets related to specific areas.

With yesterday's announcement, users will be able to note their own location, making it easier for other users to get information pertaining to an area of interest.

Nokia has filed a patent for a phone that would recharge itself (self charging)

In what seems to be a first of its kind, Nokia has applied for a patent for a technology that would allow future cellphones to charge themselves up - without the need for a power socket.

Ever since mobile phones shed off their image as basic communications devices to become multimedia powerhouses, battery life has been a cause of concern. As the processing power and features grow exponentially, the rate of growth of battery technology to charge these power hungry devices is almost at a standstill. It then becomes imperative that we look for alternate sources to power our phones rather than just depending on a power adapter. This is what Nokia has done.

The concept of this new device involves the use of heavy components inside the phone being supported on a sturdy frame. The frame will be able to move along two sets of rails, giving it the ability travel up and down (or side by side). These rails have strips of piezoelectric crystals at each end. These will generate electricity to charge the device whenever they are compressed using a capacitor that will briefly store the generated electricity and use that to charge the battery. This also means that the natural movement of the phones during travel and the times when they are inside our pockets, these piezoelectric crystals could be at work - slowly charging our phones.

This is just at the conceptual stage and there is no word if this design and concept will ever make it to a mainstream production Nokia.

Panasonic promoting its new 3-D televisions at the retailer's U.S. stores.

Panasonic, makers of the popular Viera HDTV line, announced that its new 3D TVs will go on sale in the United States later this week.

The new VT25 plasma HDTVs will arrive this Wednesday, as part of a joint promotion with Best Buy. The launch event will take place at Best Buy's Union Square store in New York City, and Best Buy will have demo units at hundreds of stores across the country, according to Engadget.

According to reports, one new model, a 50-inch 3D set (with included Blu-Ray player and 3D glasses), will cost around $2,500 at launch. That's roughly $2,000 less than its price in Japan. The lower price stateside is to help Panasonic reach its goal of selling 1 million 3DTVs this fiscal year.

Given the recent increase in 3D theatrical releases (e.g. Avatar, Up and the recently released Alice In Wonderland), it's no surprise that major HDTV manufacturers are making a serious 3D push.

Introduce two phones from Microsoft Corp. in about May or June that are targeted at teenagers

Verizon Wireless, the largest U.S. wireless carrier, will introduce two phones from Microsoft Corp. in about May or June that are targeted at teenagers, two people with knowledge of the companies’ plans said.

The models will have easy access to social-networking sites and include keyboards for text messaging, according to one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. The phones will be made by Sharp Corp. and carry the Microsoft and Verizon Wireless brands, the other person said.

Until now, Microsoft has focused on providing its mobile Windows software to phone makers, rather than offering a model under its own brand. The move would parallel Google Inc.’s decision to sell the Nexus One phone, which uses that company’s Android operating system. Microsoft is seeking to recapture a larger share of the phone market after Android and Apple Inc.’s iPhone lured away customers from Windows.

By moving directly into wireless phones, Microsoft and Google could risk hurting their relationships with other manufacturers and service providers. Microsoft will continue to work closely with handset companies that make Windows phones and the mobile carriers that sell them, the person said.

Microsoft executive Robbie Bach, who oversees the mobile- phone business, said in January that it would be “very, very difficult” for Google to sell its own phone while keeping manufacturers and carriers for other Android handsets happy.

Different Tack

With its phone, Microsoft will take a different tack than Google, said the person familiar with the matter. While the Nexus One is only available from Google, Microsoft’s phone will be sold by Verizon, the person said. The phone stemmed from a Microsoft project code-named “Pink.”

Brenda Raney, a spokeswoman for Basking Ridge, New Jersey- based Verizon Wireless, declined to comment, as did Jay Cudal, a spokesman for Microsoft. Chris Loncto, a spokesman for Osaka, Japan-based Sharp, also declined to comment.

Microsoft dropped 4 cents to $28.59 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading at 4 p.m. New York time. Verizon Communications Inc., co-owner of Verizon Wireless, fell 4 cents to $29.23 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Verizon is increasing its lineup of smartphones in a bid to get more revenue from data plans, which customers must buy to access the Internet or download applications. Smartphone shipments will increase 46 percent worldwide this year, research firm Gartner Inc. said. That compares with estimates for total mobile-phone market growth of as much as 13 percent.

Cliq, Sidekick

The phone is intended to address a similar audience as Motorola Inc.’s Cliq or T-Mobile USA Inc.’s Sidekick, one of the people said. In 2008, Microsoft acquired Danger Inc., which makes the software for the Sidekick. The Cliq includes software called Motoblur, which serves up Twitter messages, pictures and contacts to the phone’s home screen.

Microsoft will probably spend more money marketing its new mobile Windows software than the Pink phone, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Kirkland, Washington-based Directions on Microsoft. That will smooth over relationships with handset makers and carriers that are Microsoft partners, he said. Microsoft said last month that the software, called Windows Phone 7 Series, will be available in handsets by the holidays.

“They will say, ‘Windows phones is where our investment is going. You should be betting on that,’” Rosoff said. “They did keep a team working on the successor to the Sidekick and that’s what this is. This is a legacy of Microsoft being a big decentralized company doing a lot of things and seeing what wins. It’s not quite the same situation as with Google.”

Touch Screens

Rosoff said the Pink phones won’t run the new Windows software. Windows Phone 7 will offer touch-screen features, letting handsets work more like the iPhone. The software, unveiled at a conference last month, also has a new design and connects with Microsoft’s Xbox Live online games and Zune music service.

Microsoft’s Windows dropped to a 7.9 percent share of the worldwide smartphone software market in the fourth quarter, from 12.5 percent a year earlier, while the iPhone and Android posted gains, according to ABI Research.

The iPhone took 16.6 percent of the market in the fourth quarter, up from 10.8 percent the previous year, Oyster Bay, New York-based ABI said. Android climbed to 8.5 percent from 1.7 percent.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the Pink phones would be made by Sharp and go on sale as early as the spring. Technology Web site Gizmodo posted yesterday what it said were photos of one model.

YouTube is making the tens of millions of videos it hosts more accessible to the deaf

Google is now letting anyone use its new auto-captioning feature for YouTube videos.

Back in November, YouTube released a robo transcription option for just a limited number of educational channels, saying it would expand the tool to more videos in the future. Well, the future is now and has begun rolling out across the entire website1.

YouTube auto-captioning uses algorithms found in Google's voice search technology for mobiles to automatically generate video captions, according to Google. The first thing you'll notice is that, while useful, it ain't magic. Unless the video has a very clear audio track, there will be some hiccups in the voice to text translation.

Automatic captions for a 14-year-old's video diary: nigh incompressible. US President Obama's weekly address to the nation: works pretty nice.

Video owners also have the option of downloading the auto-generated transcription, touch them up, and then upload the new improved version. Content owners can select a "request processing" option for existing videos that should hasten the availability of caption tracks. However, Google warns it may take a few days for the speech recognition track to become available.

Google said it plans to broaden the feature to include more languages going forward, although it's currently available only for videos where English is spoken.

In a Thursday blog post Google said that it hopes the auto transcription service will help make YouTube more accessible to the hearing-impaired as well as those learning English as a second language.

Adding transcription tracks to YouTube search could also make finding specific videos like that one with the dog riding the skateboard easier for viewers to locate. Assuming someone with a certain clarity of diction says within the video itself something to the effect of: "Oh wow, look at that dog riding a skateboard." Now who's rolling their eyes at the guy who always states the obvious?

Google said it expects a major jump in the number of channels with auto-captions available over the next few months.

Microsoft launching a feature phone with Verizon Wireless

Microsoft will be launching a feature phone with Verizon Wireless in the US, based on Windows CE but not compatible with the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 Series.

Rumours of a Microsoft feature phone have been knocking around for a while. It was codenamed "pink" and supposedly built to replace the venerable Sidekick using the skills Microsoft acquired when it bought the previous owner, Danger. But now Gizmodo has photographs and technical details of two handsets to be launched in July on Verizon, proving that Microsoft has eyes on much more than the smart phone market.

Even from the scant details available it's clear that neither handset is Windows Phone 7 Series - despite having lots of social networking hooks and the ability to download applications. Those applications will be developed using .NET, but without the feature set of 7 Series, and probably only in partnership with Microsoft.

According to tips received by Gizmodo the two handsets, both of which feature the sliding keyboards so beloved by Americans, are based on Windows CE but with a different graphical layer and fewer features than 7 Series. They are also CDMA devices, which realistically limits them to the US at launch, though a GSM variant is always possible. The handsets clearly don't conform to the physical requirements for a 7 Series phone, and are unlikely to be as highly-specified.

It shouldn't really come as a surprise that Microsoft is paying attention to the "feature phone" end of the market - that's where everyone else is looking these days. Samsung's Bada is aimed squarely at providing downloadable applications to feature phones, and Qualcomm's BREW is being reinvented as the solution to that problem too, not to mention that it's where Symbian is hoping to make its new home now that MeeGo has moved in upstairs.

The problem for Bada is that for the moment it needs the same processing power as a smart phone, while Symbian and BREW are much more suited to that market. Microsoft's ability to do things with limited resources is somewhat patchy. The company has generally preferred to wait for the hardware to get cheap enough for its software, but this time it's Apple that's depending on the trickle-down effect while Microsoft attempts to fit a quart into a pint pot.