Pretty cool: Google news. Details here, excerpted below. What I think is cool is that the news is generated with an algorithm, menaing that there is no editor sitting and determining what is (and isn't) news. Now if they just offered an rss feed... 

A Novel Approach to News

Google's News Search (BETA) service presents information culled from many of the world's news sources collected over the previous week. With continuous updates throughout the day, you'll keep up to date with what's happening now and learn about the stories that led to the most recent developments.

What's different about Google's News Search is the unique grouping technology Google has developed to automatically put related stories together in the same search result. This makes it easy to quickly scan the headlines while providing the option of reading multiple accounts of a story from different news sources.

As we continue to improve our Google News Search service, we'll be adding more news sources and updating our index of stories more frequently. We believe these enhancements will make the service more useful, but we'd like to hear your opinions as well. What news sources would you like to see added? What advanced search features would be helpful? Are story groups a good idea or do they get in the way?

10:54:14 PM    

In Midst of a PC Slump, Apple Still Aims for Growth. A prosperous future for Apple depends on persuading legions of personal computer users to switch from Microsoft Windows to Apple's Macintosh technology. By Steve Lohr. [New York Times: Technology]

The new .mac set of tool is na excellent way of getting users to switch to the Mac. Give people a reason to use a better mousetrap, don't just sit there and claim superiority. Show me. SHow me the killer apps that are going to make my life easier. Show me the tools that I get that let me do the things I want to. Apple is doing that, and doing it well. If the .mac initiative included OS updates, they'd really be on to something.

Right now the only thing that is keeping me from switching to the Mac is that my existing software library instantly becomes so many coasters. My games, my apps, by and large are Windows only, and I am unwilling to part with that in order to go over. Although, more and more, I am finding the products I am buying to be both Win/Mac, it's not at the point that I would switch.

5:15:15 AM