Google Finds A Winner
from the free-R&D dept
A few months back Google launched their programming contest to have people try to build useful tools to work on the Google platform. I heard some people complaining that this was Google's way of getting cheap R&D from random people (at the total "prize" cost of $10,000). Apparently, some people didn't mind playing around with cool Google ideas, and they've announced a winner. The winning app lets people do "localized" searches. The app looks for addresses on websites to determine where they're probably located, and then bases the search only on results that are in the area the searcer requests. It's not a bad idea, actually. It's not clear if Google will actually use it, though. Update: News.com has an article saying the real winner in all of this is Google, since they retain the rights to every one of the entries.
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