Lucky Numbers Gadget - New directions in the Internet
There is a revolution in the way people communicate with each other. Newspapers are getting thinner or going out of business. Television programs keep saying "go to our website for more details". Almost everybody has a cell phone, and cell phones have evolved into multi-function devices that, besides carrying voice messages, take pictures or act like Global Positioning System (GPS) devices that show maps and provide directions. The cell phones also can store and play your favorite music. Many of these advances are due to the way that the Internet is developing.
Google has become the major search engine in the world and neither Yahoo nor MSN (now Bing) comes close to the breadth and depth of coverage that Google offers. The greatest handicap for finding information has been the multiplicity of languages in the world. Google is making great strides in its statistical translation approach. A user can search in other languages and have the results translated into his native language. It is now possible to search information in Arabic or Russian even if you don't know these languages. The translations are somewhat rudimentary, but they are understandable. I can imagine that in twenty years many language barriers will disappear.
One of the latest trends in the Internet is the use of gadgets which perform functions such as displaying the weather, news, or other useful information. Gadgets are XML containers with HTML and JavaScript that may be easily manipulated within web pages. To get familiar with the technology, I developed the Lucky Numbers Gadget illustrated above. It is amazing what you can do with less than 90 lines of code. Anybody can now develop customized web pages by selecting the gadgets that they find most useful.
You can add the Lucky Numbers gadget to your iGoogle web page by pressing the button:
© Copyright - Antonio Zamora
