Archive for August 2010
Wikipedia subsections spotted surfacing in Bing
I just spotted a feature of Bing that I wasn’t aware of and I think its rather cool. When Bing search results include a link to Wikipedia we also get links to Wikipedia subsections (i.e. those sections of a page that are reached using hashtag labels). Take a look at the following result for a search for America’s Cup
Those links to History, Challengers and defenders and In the media take you directly to those subsections on the Wikipedia page, observe the result of clicking on the Challengers and defenders link:
Pretty cool, and very useful! I do not know whether this is a new unannounced feature or something that has simply passed me by but nonetheless I’m sure there are plenty of people out there, including Bing users, that didn’t know about it. Now you, dear reader, do!
Mobile app match ideas–Barclays Cycle Hire & Crowdsourced Sports Scores
Liveside reported yesterday on a new site that allows one to submit ideas for apps for Windows Phone 7. I submitted two (see below) and I’d really appreciate if you could click through and add your vote to them:
Barclays Cycle Hire app
On 30th July 2010 The Mayor of London launched a new cycle scheme called "Barclays Cycle Hire" (go and Bing it).
The idea is simple – there are about 400 "terminals" around the city from where people can rent bikes and then drop them off for a nominal fee.
A key part of making this work is knowing that there will be space at the destination terminal and, if there is not, is there any space at a nearby terminal. Each terminal has a touchscreen computer that enables the customer to find out whether there is space at the destination terminal and (here is the key) that is supplemented with an iPhone app that provides the same information.Simply – I would like a Windows Phone 7 app that does the same thing.
Vote at: http://www.mobileappmatch.com/post/2010/08/01/Barclays-Cycle-Hire-app.aspx?fbid=ccPkVk2H01V
Crowdsourced Sports Scores
There are plenty of ways to get sports scores on your phone today but they all rely on someone like ESPN/an other news broadcaster providing them.
My idea is to adopt the wikipedia model of user-gen’d content and crowdsource sports scores so that THE FANS CAN BECOME THE REPORTERS.
e.g. I’m at a Lakers game and Kobe scores I would simply hit a button on my phone and send a notification of that score to the svc. Anyone else who’s interested in the Lakers can instantly see the score, probably before ESPN or whoever provides it.
Also, it could work for your college team…whatever, anyone should be free to provide data to the service on any team or sport that & it then becomes a one-stop shop for every single sports score in the world, pro or amateur. Loads of possibilities thereafter. e.g. Aggregating tweets about a particular game, real-time updated league tables, league table of "top contributors" etc…,
More details: http://bit.ly/9MgIMA
Vote at: http://www.mobileappmatch.com/post/2010/08/01/Crowdsourced-Sports-Scores.aspx?fbid=ccPkVk2H01V
Childhood memories on Bing today
I usually don’t have cause to visit any search engines home page -be it Google, Bing or anything else- as searching directly from your browser is so easy though today I stumbled upon Bing (http://www.bing.com/?mkt=en-gb) and was delighted to see that my home county of Yorkshire is featured as the photo background as part of today’s Yorkshire Day celebration.
Not only is Yorkshire Day being highlighted but the village featured in the photo is actually the beautiful coastal village of Staithes, the one time home of Captain Cook, that I used to visit on childhood holidays back in the 80s. I have happy memories of standing on that bridge watching the fishing boats coming in and out of the harbour, looking forward to enjoying one of their catch with a newspaper full of chips later that evening.
As luck would have it I am writing this blog post whilst here in Yorkshire for the weekend visiting family. It is lovely to see my home county featured so prominently and I am as proud to be a Yorkshireman today as I have ever been.
Jamie Thomson 