Best of both
A9 could be the future of search. The Amazon-owned company has just launched a test version of its search service, which combines Google results with Amazon's book search, lets you keep a history of search results, and throws in Alexa-type information plus a toolbar you can use to make notes. The extra features - Open Book Results, Open Search History - are in columns down the right-hand side. Search for Philip Glass, for example, and you not only get Google's results, you can click Site Info for details of the site plus user reviews, presented Amazon-style ("People who visited this page also visited"). In the next column, the Book Search results take you to Amazon pages selling books and CDs. You can also search A9 from the Address box: I would have typed a9.com/philip glass. But bear in mind the privacy implications of letting a company that may have access to your real name and bank account record your web searches. www.a9.com
Frock'n'roll
Alyce Santoro's Fish-shaman Rhythm Dress, "made especially for my friend, Phish percussionist Jon Fishman" made its stage debut in Las Vegas recently. "The dress fabric is made from audiotape recorded with Jon's favourite music, and specialised tape-head gloves are used to 'play' the dress on stage." But if you would look as silly as Jon Fishman in a dress, how about a $100 Tell-Tail Thangkas (a sort of Tibetan prayer flag)? The sonic fabric has "ambient nature sounds, urban noises, and improvisational music recorded on to it". www.alycesantoro.com
Google FAQ
The content of Usenet newsgroups used to be transitory, which meant people popped up asking the same questions every week. The solution was to collect the "frequently asked questions" - and their answers - into a single file, called a FAQ. In that great tradition, Tomi Häsä of the google.public.support.general newsgroup has now produced a FAQ, though many of the questions are answered with links, rather than being synthesised group wisdom. Other useful Google resources include the Elgoog.nl directory (it's Google backwards), the Unofficial Google Weblog, and Watching Google Like A Hawk. www.geocities.com/googlepubsupgenfaq
www.elgoog.nl
http://google.weblogsinc.com
www.watchinggooglelikeahawk.com
http://google.weblogsinc.com
www.watchinggooglelikeahawk.com
Geek chic
Designers of geek gadgets traditionally worried about their WAF rating, or "wife acceptability factor". Today, many women like gadgets just as much as men, and often the same ones, but Shiny Shiny TV looks for those with a bit of style. The blog is written by "a team of the UK's top gadget girl writers, plus the odd token bloke". Although they still suffer from iPod fixation, they've also managed to cover a hi-tech jacuzzi, a vibrating duck, a bubble-blowing machine and an intelligent perfume dispenser. It's more interesting than the Girls Stuff site and, thankfully, a lot less pink. http://wirelessdigest.typepad.com/shinyshiny
www.girlsstuff.co.uk
Flat tyres
If you have always wanted to ride a bike with square wheels, then doff your cap to Stan Wagon, a mathematician at Macalester College in St Paul, Minnesota. He has invented one that you can ride smoothly along an inverted catenary track. His website also features entries in the International Snow Sculpture Championships in Breckenridge, Colorado. www.stanwagon.com/wagon.html
<A HREF="http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040403/mathtrek.asp"
Raspberry beret
Not only is the princely Purple One back in the news, he has his own artist-controlled music download site. Lifetime membership costs $25, with tracks at 99c each. www.npgmusicclub.com
http://www.fast-rewind.com/purplerain.htm
Six of the best: Gadgets and gizmos
Gadgets weblog
Rival gadgets weblog
Female view
http://wirelessdigest.typepad.com/shinyshiny
Ashley & Chris
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/3108311
