Google has just announced that they're going to start building and testing a number of networks of 1 gigabit fibre-optic broadband internet connections in a variety of locations in the US, as they try and provide all kinds of communities with access to future-proof web content.

They use examples like being able to sit in a rural healthcare center and watch three-dimensional medical imaging, streamed over the web, or even being a student watching a 3D university lecture whilst also accessing notes.

The company hopes to deliver this "fibre-to-the-home" network to a number of communities for a low-rate, serving at least 50,000 people and perhaps even as many as 500,000, with the announcements as to which markets will be covered in future months.

In their eyes, it should hopefully stimulate the development of the next generation of "killer apps" that aren't limited by bandwidth.

[Google Blog]

In news that will come as no shock to regular readers of RandomlyAccessed, Warner Music has decided it will pull support for it's music collection from free music streaming services like Spotify, We7 and Last.fm

We understand why this is, per-listen, free-streamed tracks really don't make the license holders any money when supported by adverts. The bottom dropped out of the online advertising world during the recession, and companies are looking to spend their money in smarter ways online than with intrusive audio and banner advertisements.

However, something intrigues us. The company (is rumoured to) own(s) a part of Spotify, so deliberately going out to harm it would seem illogical, they've declared their intent to pursue paid-for streaming operations like the premium version of Spotify yet, which is supported by a £10pcm charge.

Click the title for more.

Apple has always shied away from allowing 3rd party browsers onto their hallowed App Store, although that hasn't stopped companies trying, with it looking set that Opera will give it a shot next week with their Mini browser.

At the Mobile World Conference next week in Barcelona, the company will be previewing the latest version of their browser (which also happens to be the more widely used mobile browser in the world) for the iPhone.

The jury's still out on whether it will be approved by Apple, but (like Spotify before them) they're trying to drum up user support before submitting in order to try and carry some momentum through the process.

Expect more info during MWC, which runs from February 15th - 18th.

[Opera Press Release]

Google has just revealed a new product it's been working on to try and tie their webmail offering in with the kind of social sharing tens of millions of web users do everyday, dubbed; Buzz.

What it'll do is surface content that your contacts can share on the service, and allow a conversation to form around it in the confines of the Gmail layout that people are familiar with and aware of.

So a user will post a link to an image gallery on Flickr or Picasa, and it'll bring up the photos, so you and your friends can talk about within (in real-time) an email like format.

Think of it like Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and Google Wave mashed up into a social mix, with followers and likes thrown in there for good measure.
Oh, and they're also creating applications for mobile platforms (Android, Symbian, etc. but not iPhone at the moment) which brings location-awareness into the fray as well.

We'll bring you a hands on when they push it out soon.

[TechCrunch] (Twitter Search)

We think Apple is the only company in the world that takes their online store down for several hours to add in only a few more products, however, it does give us time to speculate and fanboys time to start salivating as it's down now.

What do we reckon? It's an international pull down so it's going to be something reasonably big. We thought about iPad pricing for the rest of the world, but the US store is down, so we fall back on the current rumour du jour; MacBook Pro updates.

The unibody white MacBook was updated late last year, so it's going to be the Pros, with what we're expecting to be Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processor updates.

Right or wrong? We'll see when they bless us with a live store.

[Apple UK Store]

TweetDeck is one of the (if not) largest Twitter desktop clients out there, and whilst it has looked the same in nearly all iterations, it has been on something of a run in the past few months with features.

Extending on the large notifications brought with the last big update, the company is rolling out a new version that hooks into Twitter via its OAuth-powered protocol rather than relying on simply entering your password into the application. This should aid security, as well as making syncing easier.

Elsewhere in the update comes support for YouTube and Flickr. Both services will show their respective content in preview boxes within the application (rather than opening a new browser tab), making it simpler and easier to see content.

It also allows you to view images from more popular services like Posterous, Mobypicture and Twitgoo.

[TweetDeck Blog]

The seemingly never ending march of the digital SLR camera development has reached another marker today, as Canon has just released the information on the latest addition to their flagship lineup; the EOS 550D.

The new camera packs an 18.7MP still photo sensor which allows you to take 3.7FPS in burst, with a new widescreen LCD to see how those (assumedly) beautiful images come out on the rear.

What is even more interesting is that it also adds in a stereo mic jack, as well as letting you shoot 1080p video at up to 30fps and 720p at up to 60fps. It'll hit the UK at the end of the month for £800 (body-only) and in the US (in Rebel T2i guise) in March for $800, with an 18-55mm lens packing version coming in at $900 across the pond.

[PhotographyBlog] (also at Engadget)