google labs

Last post of the year from me and I've decided to ask five questions that could have some bearing on the areas I cover in this space in the next year.

If you read me regularly, you know I write a lot about Google, Apple and Microsoft. I'm also fond of eBooks and cell phones (and assorted other technologies).

So I decided to ask five questions, and if I remember a year from now, perhaps I'll revisit my questions and see if there were clear answers.

Can Apple sustain white hot earnings growth?

Facebook announced today that not only has it surpassed the 300 million-user mark, but the company is now making money.

It was bound to happen sooner or later, and the company said earlier this year that it would happen next year.

Just as British MPs line their pockets with taxpayer cash, just as Hollywood epics re-write history with happy endings, so Google was always going to want to compete with the Wolfram Alpha computational engine head on.

And so it is that we get a sneak look at Google Squared in the Google Labs, and answers engine rather than a straight search one.

So what is it, how does it work and perhaps most importantly is it any good? What it is, in the words of Google itself, would be an "experimental search tool that collects facts from the web and presents them in an organized collection, similar to...