There’s been a lot of buzz in the past month about Google’s “open handset alliance” for cell phone development called Android. In January, there were rumors of a Google hardware answer to Apple’s iPhone. The video below features a preview of android in action.

Better still, developers like me get to add to the feature set by developing our own applications, and Google’s putting up ten million bucks for developers to get involved. I can’t wait to start digging in.

Early this year, I wrote about a pretty cool interactive search engine called Ms. Dewey. Today, I found something a little more creative, even if it is slower, with less video quality, and has no sound. Still, LivoRobot is pretty cool.

I’ve been home sick today, so I was playing for a bit and here’s some of the funny searches you should try:

George Bush - Get all presidential
Linday Lohan - Dance like a wild girl
maps - she uses maps
apple - the ipod comes out
vonage - make her chat on her cell
Star Wars - the force is strong with her
google - she uses binoculars to search
flickr - she’ll take your picture
youtube - smile for the video

The star of this new search site is MySpace hottie, April Syrup, and judging by her site, I think I’ll have to play with LivoRobot some more. After all, I’m sure there’s dozens of easter eggs to be found.

One of the smarter aspects of the site is the points. The idea is to keep you on the site, searching the night away, and it works. I’ll bet the bounce rate is next to nothing. Here’s how it works. You get points every time you search. When you get enough points, you get a bonus. The first bonus was a fan that you can use to blow her skirt up. Then came the x-ray vision magnifying glass, followed by the peeping tom keyhole and the pole dance show. I haven’t gotten any further, but I am certainly curious now.

If you want to see my gallery of screen caps, click here.

I bought a computer from Circuit City in 1994 and returned it soon after. Since then, I’ve not really shopped there much. They didn’t burn me at the time or anything, but I just found better deals, etc. at other places. Today, they actually made me decide to never go there again and to write this post about how Circuit City baited me into the store with one price on their site and had a different price by time I got there.

Black Friday is about getting Christmas presents for family and friends without breaking the bank, but it’s also a great way to fill your own needs for less. Black Friday is also about planning your shopping strategy carefully to maximize savings and minimize frustration. I had been searching for a GPS unit for my car for a few months, casually. After reading reviews and comparing features and prices on several units, I decided this morning on the TomTom One Third. Radio Shack had it for about $139, and better still, Circuit City had it for $129 online and it wasn’t in their black Friday ad, so I felt good about being able to hit all the other stores and then come back for it last.

Price at 3:30 AM	Price at 8:30 AM

After our other shopping was done, my wife and I headed to Circuit City for my TomTom. Knowing what we wanted, we asked the greeter where the TomToms were and he directed us to the back of the store, where we found a short line of people also needing warehouse items. While the price was advertised online and that unit wasn’t mentioned in the print ad, it’s still an advertised price that they changed on the biggest sale day of the year. Even the sales guys were a little confused. Two of them noted that last night they saw the price I saw. For reference, here’s the full page captures:

Product Page at 3:30 AM	Product Page at 8:30 AM

Had I not known about Radio Shack selling the same item for $139, I might have fought for the price they advertised. I also didn’t feel like giving them my money at that point, so I headed to Radio Shack, instead.

This Thanksgiving, I want to thank all my fellow MyBlogLog members who have joined the JoeTech.com community. Here they all are with links to their MyBlogLog pages. Thanks, everyone!

Dino D	wamylove	tisha
Antbag	redonka	spicypage
NikNik	Molly	tlam
GorillaSushi	business	homebusinesspros.com
triplekill	Lars-Christian	greview
JoshAllen	Buzz	tmharish
innings	TheJoker	KeithLDick
GregLaden	MetastaticLiverCancer	Preety
GaryCooper	AdvertiseSpace	puahawaii
techbeam	atwig	Halil Mandal
Tubalcain	BlogaDollar	Yann A Gourvennec
Kevin aka Thryn	JerkyBeef	GeekAlerts
geminito	individual	Link And Earn
thegeekboys.com	Logesh	Dino D
spicypage	Molly	AdvertiseSpace
Halil Mandal	MasterMOZ	Sunegrl (join today to win $100.00)
Damia Anura Azlan	HealingWords	Brangus Weir
BeHappy	redonka	tlam
triplekill	Buzz	GaryCooper
techbeam	syuxx	Miss Mivens
Michele	Hock	huberthsu
lekahe	Robin	Imaginary Diva
muesli junkie	Urbanread	yolospat
nicusor	AdWorld	frucomerci
gerryPlanetEarth	Magdalena	Canuck Chick
Bobobimbo	Gerri	CyberEddie
Antbag	homebusinesspros.com	tmharish
TheJoker	GregLaden	MetastaticLiverCancer
Preety	Tubalcain	Yann A Gourvennec
Kevin aka Thryn	MyWayOnNow	A Week In The Life of A Redhead
Techminds	CulinaryDiary	ncshoppe
Sukima	Sassy RE Blogger	Wes Wyatt
WishBoNe	‘lil red 1	Tecto
kotsengkuba	Fred Peters	Adil
moonfever0	BarracudaRon	Oggin
gLf	ChewOnTech	susan_melcher
Jon B	roslimh	Phostan
Nasir	Michelle	That_One_Amy
The Panther	BillyWarhol	Laibiz
mrbad41	ABAN (win $100 and 12k tnx)	link
mantoadmire	seet_us	Todor
ReaLGoukI	Deep	lgeades
Raivyn	Bryan S	Joliveira
U want to SEE	spaceufo	neenmachine
Guardian Angel	Jonathan Benya	Mr Ethanol
Sherry W	FeedYourIntellect	Word Of Mouth Works!
docmike	Jason Heath	bethchelle
Matthew	comdot	Sarcasm Abounds
AskTheAdmin	voyeur	etomyam
Kyle	Arnold	alex kaplan
Kiss Me Tonight	purplefrog	Paige Rausch
Taipaz	zanpiaui	Zaiful
Step	paddytheque	Top Web Celebrities
tim	The Real Deal	Virtual Entrepreneur
frjessie

Please note: It is not my intent to get everyone scared about Apple having information on your phone. This post is merely an attempt at discussing ways to keep certain information from Apple if you desire to do so.

Today, Uneasy Silence offered proof (also shown below) that Apple’s iPhone is sending your IMEI information back to Apple HQ.

Obviously, this raises concerns about what other data is being collected and what other phones handle your personal information in similar ways. This got me thinking about how to prevent it, and the solution, in this case anyway, seemed pretty simple.

Everyone who is concerned about this could change the program to send the data to one of your own domains (register a domain and do nothing with it if needed). I’m sure someone could release a sort of patch to make this easy for those suffering from technophobia. Then, they could send made-up data (maybe even more often than expected to overload Apple) to http://iphone-wu.apple.com/dgw in the format needed. Let Apple sift through junk data for a while. Those with a little more technical skill could even set up a script to collect their real data and store it in case it is needed.

The ultimate solution would be to set up a script that collects all the information your phone sends, stores it, passes it to Apple, and stores the response. After a little testing, just modify the script to pass fake data to Apple, but still return the correct data to your phone.

I don’t have an iPhone, and I don’t plan to, but it’s a thought. I’d try it if someone feels like sending me an iPhone to test it.