
Despite antagonism from Apple and competition from Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook, Google has not been sleeping of late. The search engine giant has released a “sandbox” test version of a new iteration of its search feature, at http://www2.sandbox.google.com/. Described as a “next generation architecture for Google’s web search”, an early look suggests that the new search engine delivers more “real-time” results – in other words the kind of up-to-the-minute comment that fans of Twitter and Facebook are becoming accustomed to. Meanwhile Google has promised to address Apple’s refusal to stock Google’s Voice application for the iPhone by building a mobile web page that will fulfil all the same functions.