Bigmouthmedia search engine news: manufacturing

Google developing TVs that display web content

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Search engine provider Google has teamed up with Panasonic to develop televisions that display internet content, it has been announced.

Set to be launched this spring, the TVs will enable users to directly browse and view videos from Google-owned video-sharing site YouTube.

They will also allow consumers to view photos on their TVs through Google's photo-sharing service Picasa Web Albums, which will also be available on the devices.

The services will be accessible on Panasonic's new Viera PZ850 series plasma high-definition TVs with Viera Cast.

Toshihiro Sakamoto, president of Panasonic AVC Networks, stated: "This is the first time mainstream consumers will be able to easily enjoy YouTube videos from the living room with the enhanced quality of a fully integrated widescreen TV experience."

He added that the new TVs, complete with virtual one-click access to the internet functions, will "greatly expand" users' entertainment options.

Meanwhile, Steve Chen, co-founder and chief technical officer of YouTube, commented: "We're dedicated to providing users around the world with a great YouTube experience no matter where they are.

"Working with an industry leader like Panasonic will deliver the same great YouTube experience that users have come to expect on their computers."

Panasonic is a brand name for Matsushita Electric Industrial, a manufacturer of consumer electronics. Founded in 1918, the firm now employs more than 260,000 people across the world.

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Google throws its weight behind green car initiative

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Google has announced the launch of the RechargeIT initiative, which aims to reduce CO2 emissions and oil dependence by backing the adoption of plug-in electric vehicles.

The search engine giant's philanthropic arm, Google.org, is set to fund $10 million (five million pounds) to accelerate the development of the technology for the green hybrid "plug-ins".

Google also revealed that it has switched on the solar panel at its Mountain View headquarters, to help power its plug-ins with solar energy and reduce its overall environmental footprint

Dr. Larry Brilliant, executive director of Google.org, said that clean energy can "dramatically shift" how energy is made and used in powering cars and homes.

He also suggested the method of selling power back to the electric grid and using renewable energy sources can quadruple the fuel efficiency of cars and improve grid stability.

"Google is committed to using its resources to help solve the global climate challenge," he explained. "RechargeIT brings together all of these elements to help accelerate progress on plug-ins.

"By demonstrating new clean energy technologies and how they can be connected to the grid, we hope to spur demand and encourage car manufacturers to make these vehicles commercially available on a large scale on an urgent basis."

Google has been throwing its weight behind a series of pro-environment projects recently, including the Climate Savers Computing Initiative.

The search group announced it has joined forces with a host of IT industry leaders, such as Intel and Microsoft, to drive energy-efficient computing and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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NEC to fight phone spam

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 12:00:00 GMT

It's a sad fact of life that email users have become all too familiar with spam. But as email spam has grown, so have the technologies to fight it - namely, filters that can scan and detect email that is likely to be spam and automatically dump it into a junk mail folder.

As email spammers have found it increasing difficult to penetrate junk filters, they have targeted new channels of communication, the most recent being VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) users.

VoIP technology allows phone calls to be made via the internet. VoIP providers, such as Skype, are becoming increasing popular because they offer free calls to other VoIP users, as well as very cheap rates to land lines. As a result, they are particularly popular with people who often call overseas.

VoIP spam, also known as SPIT (Spam over Internet Telephony), fills internet voicemail inboxes with vocal junk messages, offering the same array of annoying products that we have become familiar with in our email inboxes. Since the cost of creating a spam call over the internet is approximately 1000 times less than via traditional phone lines, IP phones act as an easy platform for generating spam calls.

People combating the scourge of VoIP spam, however, will rejoice in the news that Japanese electronics giant NEC has developed a new technology called VoIP SEAL that fights SPIT. The technology is able to identify whether the caller is a genuine human or simply a pre-recorded spam call made by a machine. If the technology determines that a machine has made the call it blocks the connection, preventing the user's phone from ringing. The technology has been built using a modular structure so that it can be easily modified and updated with new add-ons, as spammers will inevitably try to find ways around the block.

NEC say that VoIP SEAL is still being tested and have not yet announced when a commercial product might become available, but have stated that they will be demonstrating the technology at the 2007 3GSM World Congress held this February in Barcelona. However, VoIP SEAL is already being hailed as an important development for the future of internet phone calls because there has been widespread concern that voicemail boxes brimming with illicit spam could hinder the spread of IP phone use.

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Google PageRank Update - Page Rank Update and Page Rank Explained

Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:00:00 GMT

As of Friday a Google PageRank update has been rolling out across Google Data Centres. At present, Page Rank updates are visible at most DC's, but not at every single one; some data centres continue to use a slightly older infrastructure for a few query types, and so will take much longer to update their Page Ranks.

Every quarter, Google takes an imprint of their PageRank internal values and makes them available in the Google Toolbar. The new set of PageRank values replace the last updated page ranks, and these began rolling out on Friday the 29th of September. As of Monday the second of October, most of these Page Rank updates will be complete for various geographic centres from 10.00 GMT.

By way of clarification, PageRank is Google's way of determining a page's importance. It is important because it is one of the factors that determines a page's ranking in its search results. As with anything to do with Google and its various algorithms, there is always a degree of speculation as to what the contributing factors in this determination are. With the example of PageRank, bigmouthmedia knows for a fact the following are key aspects:

Inbound Links - Votes that you have received from other pages
High Quality Sites linking to your site

The above factors are particularly affected by:

The measurable strength of a brand
The traffic that a particular site receives
The quality of the website's design (for example use of pop ups could have a negative effect)
The relevancy (to your site's theme) of the pages linking to your site and the PageRank of these pages

It pays to keep these in mind when considering PageRank in many contexts. Overall, the best advice in assessing PageRank is to ignore it and focus on the variables that control it: for example, keep producing content that other sites want to link to. Page Rank is just one of the many methods Google uses to determine a page's relevance or importance, and is only one component of the larger picture when it comes to achieving Google rankings. The Google PageRank update will be completed within the next few days.

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Google and China: a tight-lipped conversation?

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 12:00:00 GMT

A recent compromise between Google and the Chinese government has left the United States foreign affairs committee - along with more than a few others - questioning the advancement of human rights in China. The collaboration, which has resulted in China's very own google.cn, restricts online access to information in accordance with Chinese law - especially when the information pertains to political affairs. For example, Google China would not display search results for such events as the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, or any sites supporting free speech in China. If anyone were to conduct a Google search on these topics anywhere else in the world, they would undoubtedly get countless results. But not on google.cn - such results simply seem to have vanished.

Of course, there was a time when Google existed in China without any censorship. So what happened? In September of 2002, google.com suddenly disappeared from computers in China - the site seemed to be 'down', with a mere error message in its place. But what soon came to light was that the government had blocked Google - in the name of censorship. In China, one of the ways to censor the Web is to implement warnings and penalties in order to keep site content within the realm of what the government considers 'appropriate.' But the catch is that this is only possible if a Web company is based within China. Sites based outside of the country's borders have a different method of censorship applied to them - that of the Great Firewall of China. 'Router' switches, which are required by the Chinese government to run at the edge of each network, are China's censors to 'out of border' Internet companies. This results in all site requests and searches in China from private sector companies having to first hit this router at the border to be 'approved'. If sites contain words that the government considers unsuitable for its citizens, it will block the signal - that is, if a site isn't fully blacklisted to begin with. In place of an 'unfit' site, an error message would be displayed - and this is precisely what happened to Google in September of 2002. The reason behind the occurrence was that people still had the ability to find links to prohibited sites - and while following such links would only result in an error message, the process constantly reminded citizens of China that information was being withheld from them. Because Google was an 'out of border' company, China had no control over the search results and links it produced - even if the links were dysfunctional. So the government did the next best thing - it blocked Google altogether.

Theories began to fly that Baidu, the leading search engine company in China, also had a hand in the occurrence. As mentioned in a previous bigmouthmedia article, Baidu began gaining power at immense speed just one year ago when it was unveiled at Nasdaq. It's main competitor? Google. And it's said that a common practice among domestic Internet companies is to turn to the government with complaints about prohibited content on their competitors' sites, in hopes that consequences will follow. A cynic could claim that censorship is a handy tool - not only in politics, but also in business, but little can be proved.

While Google was started up again just two weeks after the Chinese government blocked it, problems still arose with the firewall slowing down the flow of Google's data into the country. And additional 'mini' shutdowns as a result of people trying to access banned sites only made matters worse. At the time, Google was also taking into account considerable sectors of the Chinese population which it was not reaching - mainly college students who were unable to access foreign websites on campus computers. Needless to say, the search engine company began to consider its options. The outcome? A negotiation with China to eliminate search results from sites seen as unfit by the government - hence, the beginning of google.cn. However, the negotiation does not prohibit access to the original google.com site, which still carries links to 'uncensored' pages - though following such links would still only lead to that infamous error message. And while google.cn only displays censored information, it comes unhindered by any firewalls, shutdowns, or error messages - a big plus to many internet users. And how did Google come up with its blacklist of 'inappropriate' sites? The Chinese government certainly didn't provide them with one. They set up a computer in China that would attempt to access countless sites outside its borders - and if it was blocked, it was placed on Google's very own blacklist.

While many in the US are arguing that the recent collaboration infringes on human rights in China, others are curious to know what Chinese citizens have to say on the matter. Kai-Fu Lee, the head of operations for Google in China stated that the students he comes across 'do not hunger for democracy,' and that the general feel among Chinese people on the issue is not one of depravity. He believes Chinese citizens are simply happy with technological advancements, such as search engines, which simply make their lives easier. So if this is truly the case, it would seem that everyone directly linked to the operation wins - the Chinese government, its citizens, and Google. Yet others see the procedure as a compromise, in more ways than one.

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Ask.com: Why we should build better cars, not rocket ships

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 12:00:00 GMT

Ask.com has travelled a long road to where it is now but since its purchase by IAC/Interactive the pace has really picked up. As Ask.com replaced the familiar Ask Jeeves in February the company stepped up its marketing activity, supported by the big parent company Ask avoided ads in favour of a more compelling search experience for its users. "The premise is we'll make money through more searches rather than more money per search" says Jim Lanzone, Ask.com's enthusiastic CEO.

His simple explanation of what makes Ask.com different says "What really differentiates us is our focus on search. Other companies are partnering with content companies and launching wi-fi networks. But we're not building a rocket ship. We're building a better car. It's not what people want in five years. It's what they want right now.

But what are these features?

A typical search on Ask for 'commercial property', for instance, returns listings as any user would expect: sponsored links at the top followed by organic listings. What's different is that directly below these links is a set of tiny binoculars which, when rolled over, produce a screenshot of the site listed. Another feature is to the right of the screen. Where most users would expect further sponsored links, Ask provides a set of links under the heading 'narrow your search', 'expand your search' and 'related names'. The bottom of the page features further sponsored listings which allows ask to provide more content before ads to users.

Of the other major search engines only Yahoo! comes close to delivering the same style of listing in comparison to Google and Microsoft Live (formerly MSN).

Amongst other search innovations, Ask will be launching one that will have an impact on its search system for blogs. The technology for this venture was created when Ask acquired Bloglines last year. This blog search along with proposed map and image search tools will offer users a style of searching that the other search engines will have to take notice of. Interestingly, Monday saw the launch of search functionality on Bloglines, a feature powered by Ask and offering.

Another development up the Ask sleeve is 'ExpertRank', which clusters sites according to topic communities through the Teoma search engine which Ask.com is built on, another of Ask's purchases from 2001. This allows the search engine to find related terms for users when searching. For example, should you search for 'ozone layer' sites it will also return sites on 'global warming'.

There is no doubt that the Ask.com engine still has more developments to unveil and as the search market speeds forward it may well be those who are 'building better cars' not 'rocket ships' that stay the course.

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LookSmart unveils 161 new search engines

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 12:00:00 GMT

[Press Release]

LookSmart(R) (Nasdaq:LOOK) (ASX:LOK), an online media and technology company specializing in vertical search, today unveiled 161 new vertical search sites in a variety of categories, delivering consumers relevant search results and advertisers a more qualified customer. Categorically focused and demographically defined, the sum of 13 vertical categories and 181 total sites makes LookSmart the largest single provider of vertical search destinations on the Web. The Company's "brand promise" is to provide consumers with essential information for passions, needs and repetitive tasks encountered in everyday life.

Where Consumers Look for What They Need

Like Cable was to television, vertical search is the Web's next logical step. Consumers embrace many media choices and integrate them into their lives, creating a desire for "vertical" services and content.

"It was clear to us that consumers want a trusted brand to provide vertical search and content so they can truly find what is essential and not exhaustive for subjects that are critical to their lives," said David B. Hills, president and CEO of LookSmart. "We've designed the sites and functionality to augment what consumers do with more generalized and portal services."

For each vertical category, LookSmart has developed an array of niche sites. For example, LookSmart's Money web sites include: mutual funds, real estate, retirement, savings, stocks, taxes and more. Unlike many other sites, content and articles found on LookSmart's vertical search sites are freely accessible and from a wide variety of sources.

Categorically and Demographically Targeted Sites for Advertisers

LookSmart's expansive set of sites make it simpler and easier for advertisers of all sizes to locate the audience they are after and effectively meet their online marketing goal. Advertisers can now reach these highly targeted audiences with search ads, banners and other creative formats.

"Few people thought that Cable would transform the television industry like it did. They thought the consumer and advertiser would not adopt and embrace vertical alternatives," added Hills. "The online medium and search in particular have these same elements. LookSmart is in a unique position to lead this evolution of consumer and advertiser choice on the Web. I'm extremely proud of the LookSmart team and we all look forward to this new chapter in our company's development."

Within each vertical site relevant content is broken out first by topic, then by source, and all information is compiled to suit the visitor's needs. On LookSmartFamilyMeals.com, a parent can find content on a wide variety of realistic "family friendly" recipes and cooking information such as: "quick cook," "cooking for kids," "breakfasts" and even as exact a search as "chicken dishes" for kids with particular eating habits.

Visitors to any LookSmart vertical site will find relevant articles, blogs, news and Web results delivered within a robust tool set that allows them to find what they want, save what they need and share with other like minded people, without lengthy registration or personalization.

The LookSmart-branded vertical search categories of sites include:

- Auto (www.looksmartauto.com)

- Cities (www.looksmartcities.com)

- Education (www.looksmarteducation.com)

- Food (www.looksmartfood.com)

- Health (www.looksmarthealth.com)

- Home Living (www.looksmarthomeliving.com)

- Money (www.looksmartmoney.com)

- Music (www.looksmartmusic.com)

- Recreation (www.looksmartrecreation.com)

- Sports (www.looksmartsports.com)

- Style (www.looksmartstyle.com)

- Tech and Games (www.looksmarttech.com) and

- Travel (www.looksmarttravel.com)

goZone.com offers vertical search

Thu, 24 Jun 2004 12:00:00 GMT

[Press Release]

Vertical Search is up and coming in the search industry and goZone.com steps up to the plate by providing searchers Vertical Search with Zones. Vertical Search at goZone.com allows a searcher to search on a specific topic within a specific Zone. Searchers can use Zones to find information directly related to a topic, eliminating the dilution caused by irrelevant listings.

The goZone.com search engine (http://www.gozone.com) today announced that it is expanding the breadth of its relevant listings by providing searchers with Vertical Search using highly specific Zones. goZone.com uses Zones to classify its search listings into twelve distinct categories—including lifeZone, newsZone, and techZone. These Zones allow searchers to narrow the focus of their searches, honing in on the specific result they are seeking. The search engine's Zones accelerate the user's search for relevant listings.

Vertical Search at goZone.com allows a searcher to search on a specific topic within a specific Zone. Searchers can use Zones to find information directly related to a topic, eliminating the dilution caused by irrelevant listings. For example, a searcher seeking information on 'seal' has the option to search in homeZone, lifeZone, shopZone or funZone, depending on whether they are seeking information about the animal, the Army seal, the store Wet Seal, or the musician Seal. The idea behind Vertical Search with Zones is that instead of searching horizontally, or broadly across a range of topics, a searcher can vertically search within only a narrow band of interest.

"We see that Vertical Search is the next big thing in the search industry," stated Ernie St. Gelais, the President of goZone.com. "We recognize that searchers are becoming more sophisticated, learning that general purpose search engines do not always give them the best, most relevant search results they desire. goZone.com strives to give its users the specific results they seek in the shortest possible time." To learn more about the new goZone.com search engine visit, (http://www.gozone.com / about.htm).

About goZone.com
The goZone.com search engine launched on January 5th, 2004 and was the first search engine to field extreme personalized search capability. With revolutionary new products and technology, such as search algorithm choice and vertical search with Zones, goZone.com challenges other concepts of personalized search and allows the user more total control over their search experience. To find out more about new goZone technology and upcoming features, visit (http://www.gozone.com / help.htm?title+Features).

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