Google Hot Trends now in Singapore

Google Trends is one of the many products from the search giant meant to analyze the Internet, giving you an idea of what people are searching for. A subset of this is Hot Trends, which narrows down the results to a specific country. This started with the US and then India, and now, Singapore is the third country to have the Hot Trends feature.

Hot Trends Singapore lists the fastest rising queries on Google Singapore. This is not based on volume alone, but on the rate of increase of the search term. This makes perfect sense as top searches rarely ever change, with common queries like "weather" and "sex" taking up top spots all the time. We had a look at the trends from today and found queries like "waste paper" and "raffles place ghost" taking up positions in the top five. Unsurprisingly, searches for results of the American Idol singing contest aired in Singapore on Wednesday night also featured prominently.

For those living in Singapore, we know how people here love to queue up for food just because they see a long line at a stall. With Hot Trends Singapore, well, you can apply the same thinking to surfing the Internet: "I’ll look at what he's looking at!"

Let us count the ways to skin a mouse

We've heard of glamor studios dishing out free makeovers when you purchase the full package. Now, from Men to Mice, Microsoft Hardware is likewise offering a similar cosmetic freebie for selected mice (from S$59) and Wireless Laser Desktop kits (from S$129) that you purchase from now till June 30. Just know that this is only for Singapore, where customers will get to choose from eight Digiskin decals which include visuals from Halo 3, racing designs and the usual airbrush artwork. The entire skinning process should take about 30 minutes, done on the spot by a machine that ensures air bubble-free workmanship. Unfortunately, if you want your very own design, you'll have to fork out the usual S$12 rate, plus bring your own JPEG. Rats!

Microsoft starts pushing out Vista SP1

Microsoft said on Wednesday that it is beginning automatic distribution of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, the first major update to the year-and-a-half-old operating system.

The company finalized the Vista update in February, but has held off until now pushing it directly to individuals.

Starting Wednesday, the company will start sending it to Vista users who have Windows' automatic update feature turned on. However, the company cautioned that not everyone will get SP1 immediately.

"While Microsoft is beginning automatic distribution today, it's important to note that customers might not see the update download right away since Microsoft is distributing the service pack in phases to ensure a seamless download experience," the company said in a statement.

Vista SP1 was made available for download to customers last month. Service Pack 1 doesn't add much in the way of new features, but rather is a collection of changes designed to fix bugs and improve performance, as well as address competitive concerns raised by Google over Vista's desktop search system. Microsoft also changed how its antipiracy mechanism works with SP1.

The release of Vista SP1 via automatic update is the second milestone this week for the Windows team. On Monday, Microsoft announced it had finished work on Windows XP Service Pack 3. That product will be available for download next week, Microsoft said, but won't start being pushed out via automatic updates until summer.

Via CNET News Blogs

Searchme visual search engine

With searches, your results usually give you the name of Web sites and a short description. If you don't really know what you are looking for, prepare to click on dozens of links before finding it. Well, Searchme, a relative newcomer to the search business, has an interesting solution. Instead of giving you text results, it provides snapshots of the pages. If you did a search for "CNET Asia", you actually see our home page in its entirety, albeit in lower resolution. You can then scroll through the results like you do when viewing albums in Apple's iPod Cover Flow interface.

When you are typing in the search box, it even gives suggestions about narrowing your search within categories. Not a particularly useful feature because, honestly, even when searching in general with no category restrictions, the results we got weren't that great. To be fair, it does take time to index the Internet, so maybe Searchme's results will get better over time. After all, it's presently only in its public beta stage. As of now, it's just really cool to use and is a refreshing alternative to the regular text searches we have all become so used to.

LaCie releases 500GB rugged harddisk

Ninjas, John Locke, and Bear Grylls take note: your active lifestyle have nothing on the LaCie Rugged Hard Disk. But even if you're not trekking through the trenches and sinister islands, you'll still appreciate LaCie's latest version of their rugged hard disk with an impressive 500GB capacity.

We loved the previous models so much that we gave them our much coveted Editors' Choice back in 2006, and we're happy to see that LaCie stepped it up to an improved Hitachi Travelstar 5K500 2.5 inch internal hard drive. Like previous models, this also connects via USB 2.0, FireWire 400, and FireWire 800. Anyone making good use of the ruggedized body? We want to hear about how your LaCie Rugged Hard Drive withstood beats, stompings, animal attacks, elemental anomalies, and time travel.

The 500 GB LaCie Rugged Hard Disk is available now for US$340 for the USB 2.0 model; US$400 for the FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 model.

Via Crave CNET

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