Visual search engine Searchme has a sexy new iPhone app that brings its signature Coverflow-like interface to the phone's 3.5-inch display. Search results come in the form of large thumbnails with short content summaries underneath. To browse through them you simply flick your finger across the screen, just like you would with album covers in the phone's iPod application.

The app also supports pinch gestures for zooming in on thumbnails. This lets you see the the details of a page before visiting it in Safari--something that can be done with a simple double tap on any result. This may seem like a trivial feature, but it can be immensely helpful, and in some cases even prevent you from having to visit the site at all. In my case I was able to pull up a restaurant's address just by zooming in, saving me some time and data.

Searchme knows when you've flipped it on its side and will display the search results in gorgeous Coveflow-style.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The application makes use of the iPhone's accelerometer, and can tell when you've got it in landscape mode. When flipped, you get an additional two thumbnails on the screen, and it does away with the summaries entirely. It's also marvelously fun to zoom back and forth.

This app is definitely more than eye candy. Over a 3G connection it took just three seconds to bring up search results that I was able to flip through, and another 15 to stream in the thumbnails. During that loading time I was able to browse through the titles and summaries with zero lag which is really impressive.

Searchme is free and can be found in the app store (iTunes link).

Previous Searchme coverage:
Searchme tries music streaming to attract users
Search interfaces of tomorrow you can try today
Searchme nabs $31 million from Google backer, others

Google says it aims Gmail at the technological elite, knowing that the information overload problems they have today will be the problems mainstream users have tomorrow. But apparently the company isn't above appealing to those who are willing to judge a book by its cover as well as its content.

On Wednesday, Google launched themes for Gmail, a feature that lets people customize the appearance of the Webmail application with a variety of new looks. Google is gradually rolling out the new feature to Gmail members "over the next couple of days," said Gmail team member Annie Chen.

It's something of a departure for a site that prides itself on its utilitarian nature--even the addition of graphical smileys to Gmail can be justified as improving a message's emotional nuance. But given Google's move toward the mainstream, it's smart. People like to personalize their frequently-used computing tools.

Perhaps more interesting from a brand perspective, Google is even willing to give up the Gmail logo in some of the skins. That suits me fine--I find the logo an eye-trippingly ugly hodgepodge of the Google G, a graphical envelope for the "m", and three sans-serif letters for "ail."

Now showing: Gmail themes.

(Credit: Google)

Real estate search site Trulia announced Wednesday that it has inked a deal with 1020 Placecast, an advertising company that uses location-based information to target audiences, that will see the site's advertising become location-specific.

Once users input a location they want to learn more about on Trulia, Placecast will access that data and apply it as a key component along with common demographic data points like psychographic information to provide more targeted ads.

"Once we know the place a user is interested in, we can derive a lot of useful insights about what kind of consumer they are, and then serve them a very targeted ad," Alistair Goodman, CEO of Placecast, said in a statement.

In order to deliver that ad, Placecast works with publishers in categories such as travel, events, real estate, and weather to offer advertisements that not only try to appeal to visitors, but make their location a key factor in targeting them.

The partnership with Placecast is extremely important for Trulia. The company is naturally affected by the downturn in the real estate market, and it relies on home ownership for success. Realizing that, Trulia executives needed to act and increase revenue as quickly as possible during these suspect times, and they evidently believe Placecast is their best bet.

Eariler this month, I spoke with Brendan Eich, CTO of Mozilla and creator of JavaScript. We discussed the development process for the open-source Firefox browser, the status of Firefox mobile, and new competition.

Eich maintained that increasing competition from Google and Apple, as well as Microsoft, is good for developers and users. It also helps that the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation garnered $75 million in revenue, mostly from its search partnership with Google, which ironically just launched Chrome, a competitor to Firefox. With $33 million in expenses last year, it appears the Mozilla team is well funded to continue development at a rapid pace and attract top talent.

Regarding competition with Google's Chrome and other browsers, Eich said:

It's really a neck and neck race. There is a contest going on not only between Google and Mozilla but also Apple to have the fastest JavaScript engine, to have the best performance on various benchmarks. This is great. Competition is good for users and for Web developers. Another focus for us, especially for me is the Web developers...We are right in there, we are slugging it out. On the Google benchmarks their JavaScript engine is faster, on Apple's benchmarks we're faster than Google currently. It is going to vary, you are going to see it go back and forth, so it is only going to go up, which is the best thing for developers and that is what we are focused on.

Watch the video

Google has released a new application for Mac users called "Vocito" that puts GrandCentral calling right on your desktop. It integrates with OS X's address book, Automater app, and third-party applications like Blacktree's QuickSilver to let you start a GrandCentral-powered call no matter what you're doing on your machine.

Similar to JaJah and Jaxtr, Vocito's system for setting up calls involves you first picking who you want to call, then choosing which one of your GrandCentral-connected phones you want it to be connected from. You then hit dial and GrandCentral does the rest. It's basically the same exact thing you've been able to do with GrandCentral's Web interface for years, but now you can have a deeper level of integration across your entire system.

This deeper integration centers around a slick and simple Mac taskbar drop-down application that's directly integrated with the Address Book app. It lets you start a call almost as fast as doing a Spotlight search. This is made a little easier if you're a Quicksilver user, since you can search for contacts and call them via Vocito with the included plug-in. In most cases, this worked for me with about six keyboard strokes, which I found faster than picking up my phone to dial a contact.

Vocito's simple taskbar application lets you hunt through your address book and make a call no matter what you're doing on your computer.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

If you don't have time for six keystrokes, the application lets you save a customized phone call preset as an AppleScript command. Clicking it begins the call immediately. You can leave these laying around your desktop, or put them into a folder to keep in a stack on your dock for handy "speed dialing" later on.

Vocito is free to use and will run on both PPC and Intel Macs. You will, however, need a GrandCentral account, which Google continues to keep in a highly limited beta--that is, unless you're homeless.