Google to discontinue GOOG- 411 directory-assistance.

After three years, Google is doing way with GOOG-411 its directory-assistance service who looked revolutionary and way ahead of its time when it debuted. But compared with today's more advanced voice-search tools including the one for smartphones from Google itself, GOOG-411 appears obsolete.
However, we should never forget that GOOG-411 paved the way for today's relatively refined speech-recognition tools used by Android phones, including voice search, which lets you search Google by speaking rather than typing. In addition, voice input lets you fill a text field by speaking. And you can call a business simply by saying its name (into the phone).
Despite their gain in the marketplace, not everyone uses a smartphone and the loss of GOOG-411 will have the greatest impact for those still using flip/phones. Those users are offered a somewhat archaic tool consisting of sending a text message with the name and location of the business that they are looking for to "GOOGLE" or 466453. In return, they will receive a text back with the desired information.
GOOG-411 will shut down November 12.

For more, see pcworld.com

Motorola Cliq smart phone will synch and stream various sources onto the screen.

Last month, Motorola introduced its first Google's Android phone, the Motorola Cliq scheduled to go on sale exclusively from T-Mobile beginning Nov 2 with pre-ordering for current T-Mobile customers starting from October 19 to November 1. The Motorola Cliq is priced at $199.99 for the pre orders and will likely remains at that price when it goes on sale to the general public, according to Barron.co.
With Google Android as the brain, the phone comes loaded with various offerings from Google like Google Maps with Street View, Google Voice Search, Picasa, Google photos sharing website, Gtalk etc.
But when it comes to e-mail services, the Motorola Cliq offers several options beside Google's Gmail, including Yahoo mail, Windows Live and others.
According to CNET.com, Motorola Cliq comes equiped with a full HTML Google browser, WI-FI capabilities and is Bluetooh and GPS ready. It also has a built-in music and video player, and a 5-megapixel camera with video recording capabilities.
But beside all its nice features, what Motorola is hoping will set the Cliq apart from the competition, is its featuristic interface called Motoblur which key element is it ability to synch information from different sources such as your work or personal e-mail accounts, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social networks sites and automatically display any updates from those sources, on the screen.
In that new feature, Motorola tries to set the tone in what a smart phone should be: an Internet access and platform device. How true that assumption is going to ring, will depends on how widely and quickly the new phone is adopted before the next new thing comes out and takes all the novelty factor out of it.

For more, see CNET.com