Daily Bits

Andy Merrett

Google introduces lockable SafeSearch

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Google’s SafeSearch, while not completely safe (depending on what you define as “safe”, that is) is certainly a great tool for helping to keep kids from viewing inappropriate material online, but it has suffered from being easy to unlock — even without a child actively trying to circumvent it.

That’s why Google has just announced an updated version of SafeSearch that requires a password in order to be removed.

The look of SafeSearch has changed, so when it’s engaged a set of big coloured Google balls are displayed top-right. This makes it easy for a parent or teacher to quickly see that it’s still engaged.

Of course, this is just one thing and won’t block dodgy sites on its own, but it’s a start.

Google Maps adds Hawaii to Street View

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google-hawaii-street-viewGoogle has announced that it has now added the fiftieth state to Google Maps Street View.

If Hawaii is a bit far, and expensive, for you to travel, you can at least experience it virtually via Google’s excellent street level imagery.

You could even use it to plan a vacation, or inspire you to start saving!

Check out a gallery of Hawaii beaches.

Google is also on the lookout for suggestions of other places to enshrine on Street View, and is running a vote this month.

Make your selection of parks and trails, university campuses, malls, theme parks and zoos, and landmarks.

Via

Google Dashboard: how much does your life rely on Google?

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How times have changed since Google was a humble search engine. Today, you can edit office documents, share calendars, manage your address book, blog, receive alerts, synchronise your mobile devices, talk online, watch and upload videos, store your web search history, upload edit and share photos, and more.

How do you keep track of how much information the mighty Google has on you?

Simple: take a look at the new Google Dashboard.

google-dashboard

It’s a fairly simple concept: as any good dashboard application should, it simply displays which of Google’s services you’re using and makes it easy to access settings, such as privacy control.

Google announces:

Today, the Dashboard covers more than 20 products and services, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, Orkut, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts, Latitude and many more. The scale and level of detail of the Dashboard is unprecedented, and we’re delighted to be the first Internet company to offer this.

Check it out, particularly if you use a lot of Google services. You might be surprised how much you rely on Google!

Four iPhone apps for creative writers

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Want to get creative while on the move, or check up on how some of your writing buddies are getting on?

The iPhone’s virtual keyboard may not be best suited for cranking out paragraphs of prose, but sometimes you’ve just got to write, regardless of where you are.

Check out these four apps for the iPhone. Click on the title to go to the app on the iTunes Store.

my-writing-nook-iphoneMy Writing Nook

Write from anywhere and automatically synchronise with the My Writing Nook web application, so you can work from your laptop, iPhone, Internet café — anywhere.

Features autosave, word count, dictionary and thesaurus look ups, portrait and landscape modes.

£1.19 / $1.99


writers-block-buster-iphoneWriters Block Buster

Boasts over 300 thought-provoking questions to get those creative writing juices flowing again when the inspiration has dried up.

12 different categories including plot development and dialogue, with the ability to input your own content and characters.

£2.39 / $2.99


nanomojo-iphoneNaNoMojo

If you’re participating in this year’s NaNoWriMo, this app will keep you in touch while on the move.

Keep up-to-date with how your writing buddies are doing, including word counts, avatars, and latest news from HQ.

£0.59 / $0.99


ipoems-101-iphoneiPoetry

Provides help and assistance for budding poets, including practice and suggestion for eight types of poem. The app can even generate its own poetry.

£1.19 / $1.99

Twitter introduces public and private lists

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If you’re a Twitter fan and still use twitter-team-listthe web interface a lot, you may be interested in the new “lists” feature that’s being rolled out across accounts.

The concept is very similar to the sort of contact management you’ll find in many third-party Twitter applications, except with the added feature that you can make lists public, so other people can follow those people all in one go.

For the uninitiated, lists are useful when you have a lot of contacts but would like to separate them into more manageable sets.

Say you follow family members, work colleagues, celebrities, some bloggers, and then others you’ve had some kind of conversation with online. Instead of having to wade through a single feed with everyone’s tweets on, you can select to view just the tweets of a particular group, by putting all of those people in a list.

Lists can be made private, if you don’t want others to see them, or public.

I still think for power Twitter users, using a desktop client for reading and tweeting is the best option, but for keen Twitter users who like the web interface, lists can add just a little bit of clarity to an otherwise cluttered tweet space.

What do you think of Twitter lists?

Google partners with MySpace, links to music from search

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Music is a hugely popular search topic, with two of the top 10 queries in the US being about music, which is probably why Google has partnered with MySpace to make it easier for those searches to link to actual music.

Entering the name of a song, album or artist into a Google search will now include links to audio previews on MySpace (via iLike) or Lala. Naturally there are links to purchase the music too.

As Google’s expertise is in search, simply entering a portion of the lyrics will also bring up relevant music tracks.

In addition, Google has partnered with Pandora, imam and Rhapsody to provide more ways of discovering related music.

As per usual with Google’s new rollouts, it’s US only at present, but hopefully this will be pushed out to other countries in due course.

Via