Tech News: Google Real-time Search, CrunchPad Now the JooJoo & Apple iTunes in the Cloud via Lala?

Happy snowy, hail-y & raining Monday from the San Francisco Bay Area. But, the tech news is HOT today:

• Google Aims To Push The Speed Of Light With Realtime Results. Seriously.
  “Today, at its Search Event in Mountain View, Google Fellow Amit Singhal (who recently participated in our Realtime Crunchup) took the stage to announce a big new feature for the search giant: Realtime. “It’s Google’s relevance technology meeting the realtime web,” is how Singhal described it.” (source: TechCrunch)
  • HTD: The Search Engine wars continue to their game of Frogger with Google today announcing that they will be providing real-time results from searching (including Twitter). I’m not sure how much quicker the web can go now, unless we physically plug a Cat-5 cable into our heads. I tested my Google account and it was not active yet (I believe that you can tell by looking at the “options” section and under the timing part, you will see “latest” listed there. Not that the whole Tiger Woods thing hasn’t been beaten to death (almost literally) but you can see this feature in action on this page “search Tigers mistresses“.
• Fusion Garage announces JooJoo cloud tablet; swipes at TechCrunch
  “Fusion Garage founder and CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan announced on Monday the JooJoo, a cloud-based, 12.1-inch tablet device that will retail for $499. ‘This product is the first of its kind to boot within 9 seconds,’ Rathakrishnan said. ‘It’s truly what comes closest to instant-on.'” (source: ZDNet)
  • HTD: Wow, this surprised me. But I think the JooJoo is a good as dead as of this writing, simply because I think it will get caught up in a legal quagmire. Also, at a pricepoint of $499, this thing is simply NOT going to sell, especially at ONLY 5 hours battery, no mobile SIM and only a web OS. While I would love to do a review of it, I have a feeling that any that come out will immediately be considered collector’s items and horded by those who get their hands on them (I wonder if they show finger-prints…). Perhaps they should hook up with Google and put the Google Chrome OS on it and then get it subsidized with Google ads. I view a heated online and legal battle coming between TechCrunch/Arrington and Fusion Garage/Rathaksrishnan. Buckle your seatbelts!
• Apple reportedly spent $80 million to acquire Lala
  “Apple’s surprise purchase of music streaming service Lala last week has been given an unconfirmed price tag of about $80 million, placing a premium on the company. Citing multiple sources, Peter Kafka of MediaMemo reported Monday that Apple’s acquisition price was less than half of what investors agreed to pay in 2008. However, it is more than the $35 million the company had raised, meaning some — but not all — could see a return on their investment in the company.” (source: AppleInsider)
  • HTD: You don’t normally hear about big company acquisitions from Apple, normally you hear someone like Google or Microsoft just snapping up companies left and right. This is a pretty big play by Apple and may indicated a further move by them “to the Cloud.” MobileMe was the first major “cloud” move (much more of a Software-as-a-Service – SaaS type of play). Having iTunes “in the cloud” would be significant and companies like Pandora might want to feel a bit worried. However, I think it is simply going to be “your library to go” and not radio stations based on genres or similar music (like Pandora). Still, this will be interesting to see how Apple will put their innovative style on this service.

HTD says: I think it will be a week packed with end-of-year tech announcements!