When the TVs hit shelves next month, the only content on offer will be YouTube (without the ability to search) and a weather app. NineMSN’s content will be arriving sometime in August, so long as everything goes to plan. The deal with NineMSN also doesn’t mean that yoyu’ll never see a Flickr widget on their TVs – it’s definitely something Samsung or working on implementing.

Part of the NineMSN content planned is a location based entertainment guide, with information on local cinemas, restaurants and bars all available through your TV, including menus and restaurant types. All that’s required is for you to enter your postcode, and the NineMSN content engine will offer the rest.

Like Panasonic’s Viera Cast, all the content is aggregated on Samsung’s own servers, which means that they can implement updates without you requiring to download an update for your TV.

While it’s still very early days for this type of integrated IP technology in home entertainment hardware, it’s actually a really promising start. Sure, we’ll probably never get a Bittorrent client built in to our TVs, but simple web content is probably all that most people will use.

It’s still a little while away yet, so in the meantime you’ll have to settle for just being able to browse the Qantas website in a format especially designed for your iPhone. ANZ and NineMSN are also jumping on the iPhone-friendly website bandwagon, although both only have limited functionality as well at the moment.

The real question is though – is this just a few companies trying to leech some of the iPhone’s neverending hype machine, or are they trying to create a truly convenient service using the iPhone’s impressive feature set? Only time will tell…

[Qantas for iPhone via APC Mag]

Looking ahead: Google announces technology that searches tomorrow’s web, today

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, 1 April 2008 – Google Australia today announced the launch of gDay™, a new beta search technology that will search web pages 24 hours before they are created.

View the gDay™ page for more information, user testimonials and Q+A.

gDay was developed in Google’s Sydney engineering centre and can accurately predict future events and internet content. It does this by using machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques from a system called MATE™ (Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation).

Using Google’s index of historic, cached web content and a mashup of numerous factors including recurrence plots and fuzzy measure analysis, gDay creates a sophisticated model of what the internet will look like 24 hours from now – including share price movements, sports results and news events. Plus, using language regression analysis, Google can even predict the actual wording of tomorrow’s blogs and newspaper columns.

Then, to rank these future webpages in order of relevance, gDay uses a statistical extrapolation of a page’s PageRank, called SageRank.

Only Australian websites are included in the beta.

“Google’s Australian engineers have a history of major technological innovations, from Google Maps™ to Mapplets™ to Traffic for Google Maps. Giving humankind the ability to see 24 hours into the future is just a natural progression – of sorts,” said Alan Noble, Head of Engineering for Google Australia & New Zealand.

“Users – particularly those who like a casual flutter – will really benefit from this feature. Maybe you want to see tomorrow’s rugby scores. Maybe you want to see tomorrow’s lotto numbers. Maybe this is the greatest freakin’ product ever.”

See today’s post on the Google Australia Blog.

gDay, MATE, SageRank, PageRank, Google Maps and Google Mapplets are trademarks of Google Inc.

And Whirlpool:

Sydney, Australia — ninemsn today announced the full acquisition of
Australia’s leading online broadband and technology discussion site,
Whirlpool.

The acquisition demonstrates the strategic importance
of user-powered content to ninemsn’s vision of delivering content and
services to customers, where, when and how they want it; and connecting
advertisers with a broad, engaged audience wherever they are accessing
these services.

According to Tony Faure, ninemsn CEO, Whirlpool
represents the changing face of media and technology in Australia.
“More and more consumers are turning to sites such as Whirlpool for up
to date information, research and discussion. Whirlpool will provide us
access to a diverse and technologically aware user base, and allow us
in turn to provide our clients with an innovative and cutting-edge
marketing solution.”

“We’ve recognised the expertise of the
Whirlpool team in nurturing the largest discussion forum in Australia.
Certainly though there are new opportunities to combine Whirlpool with
the strength and depth of the ninemsn brands and services. We intend to
position the site towards a more mainstream audience, while retaining
many of the technical aspects for which it is currently renowned.”

“There
are also opportunities for synergy between Whirlpool and Windows Live
Spaces. Both sites let you stay in contact with your friends, explore
and discover new people, or share with your friends and family. Spaces
also has a powerful user profile system with themes, layouts and
colors. Whirlpool will really benefit as we integrate the ninemsn user
experience into the site.”

Simon Wright, founder of Whirlpool,
said “Whirlpool has gone further than I ever imagined. It’s been great
to see it become what it is today — the premier resource on broadband
and technology-based discussion in Australia. Now, as it moves into its
next phase, I’m looking forward to seeing ninemsn apply their proven
track record to the Whirlpool concept.”

“Both teams are excited by the opportunities to combine their resources on new projects in technology and broadband content.”

Also
unveiled today was a new design for the Whirlpool website. The design,
scheduled to be implemented in the coming weeks, brings the site into
line with other ninemsn network sites, and includes a new colour scheme
and advertising positions.

Financial terms for the acquisition were not discussed.

About ninemsn
ninemsn
is Australia’s number-one interactive media company. Over 8.6 million
people visit ninemsn each month, representing 73 per cent of active
Australian Internet users. Formed in 1997, ninemsn is a 50:50 joint
venture between the Microsoft Corporation and PBL.

Were there any other April Fool’s jokes that we missed? Tell us about them in comments.

Word just to hand is that you can now get a regular dose of schadenfreude through Vodafone live!, with ninemsn launching free TV action on the network. Australia’s Funniest Home Videos is the real golden goose here – don’t we all want our fix of home grown unintentional Jackass / YouTube moments wherever we go?

For those with no sense of humour, you can watch Getaway, The Footy Show Comedians (What’s that? Some kind of stand up snippets, I guess), and the 2007 Tropfest films. Not a bad bunch of clips to kill some time in transit.

Maybe AFHV should be best left to the privacy of our homes. Is it really civil to laugh out loud in public at other people’s misfortune, even if it is only a vid on your mobile?-Seamus Byrne