Shine new light on recording user research, interviews, lectures and more with Cohdoo Highlight. Let your fingertip be your highlighter. Simply start a recording, marking "aha" moments as you hear them. Break time? Pause and resume the same recording, adding more highlights. Later, easily review your highlights, add notes and share recordings with your team.

http://empathylab.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-create-predictive-search.html

SEO (Search engine optimization) will change as well. Sites will need to optimize for particular letter combinations, not just entire keywords. It will be interesting to see whether results get spammed or if Google will gain the upperhand in this constant cat and mouse game.

More on TechCrunch:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/08/google-instant-speed-volume/

Many organizations still rely on asking people what changes they’d like to see in their website or service, neglecting historical research failures like the new Coke or the Aeron chair.

When asking people, you have to be aware that people make confident but false predictions about their future behavior, especially when presented with a new and unfamiliar design. There’s a huge difference between imagining using something and actually using it. In addition, human preferences are rather unstable.

That said, you should still listen to your customers. But make sure you know what to ask and how to interpret the answers.

"Like iTunes™ for research papers. Mendeley is a free research
management tool for desktop & web."

Although I really like the Firefox plugin Zotero for organizing my papers, Mendeley seems to be quite an alternative.