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Google

Computer Scientist Calls For Web Search Shake-Up 141

Posted by samzenpus from the what's-wrong-with-repackaging dept.
alphadogg writes "Given the seemingly non-stop battle between Google, Microsoft and others in Web search, you might think this is a pretty fertile area for new ideas. But a University of Washington computer science professor thinks otherwise and is calling on academia and industry to get way more creative. Timed to coincide with this year's 20th anniversary of Tim Berners-Lee springing the World Wide Web upon us, Oren Etzioni Thursday will have a commentary titled 'Search needs a shake-up' published in the journal Nature. The main obstacle to progress 'seems to be a curious lack of ambition and imagination,' Etzioni writes in the piece, which he acknowledges 'is meant to be provocative.'"
Microsoft

Microsoft Betting on Bing for Mobile Search 204

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the htdig-is-enough-for-anyone dept.
msmoriarty writes "Bing is a still a money loser for Microsoft, and the calls for the company to sell it off are growing. But according to long-time Microsoft watcher Mary-Jo Foley, dumping Bing is just not going to happen. 'While the world sees Bing as a distant No. 2 search engine, Microsoft brass and bean counters see Bing as a reusable component and asset that will be built into more and more products. Those who think Microsoft will discard Bing or sell it to the highest bidder are dead wrong — that won't happen now or any time soon.'"
Microsoft

Microsoft Yanks Security Site Poisoned With Porn 36

Posted by Soulskill from the internet-is-for-porn dept.
CWmike writes "Microsoft disabled the search tool on its Safety & Security Center on Saturday after attackers poisoned results with links to pornographic URLs. The company restored the website's search field early Monday afternoon ET. Alex Eckelberry, the general manager of GFI Software's security group and CEO of Sunbelt Software, said search poisoning is not unusual — but this is different. 'This is crafty,' Eckelberry said. 'This isn't normal search poisoning. It's poisoning the results with actual searches. Users were getting back a prior search as a search result.'"
Google

Google Blocks co.cc From Search Results 127

Posted by timothy from the blocking-dot-com-would-be-even-more-thorough dept.
tekgoblin writes "Google has taken the attack on malware into its own hands today as it blocks the entire co.cc subdomain. The block removed about 11 million results from the Google search index which should dramatically clean up much malware in search results."
Google

Google: Orkut Will Co-Exist With Google+ 64

Posted by timothy from the optimism-defined dept.
splitenz writes "Google's other social networking site, Orkut, which has been around for about seven years and has tens of millions of users worldwide, will continue to operate alongside the new Google+ for now. However, Google is leaving its options open regarding the possibility of fusing the two through some sort of integration further down the road."
Microsoft

Microsoft Partners With Baidu, China's Top Search Engine 115

Posted by Soulskill from the enemy-of-my-enemy dept.
countertrolling writes with news that Microsoft has struck an agreement with Baidu.com, the most popular search engine in mainland China, to provide results for English-language queries. From the NY Times: "Baidu, which dominates Chinese-language search services here with about 83 percent of the market, has been trying for years to improve its English-language search services because English searches on its site are as many as 10 million a day, the company said. Now it has a powerful partner. 'More and more people here are searching for English terms,' Kaiser Kuo, the company’s spokesman, said Monday. 'But Baidu hasn’t done a good job. So here’s a way for us to do it.' Baidu and Microsoft did not disclose terms of the agreement. But the new English-language search results will undoubtedly be censored, since Beijing maintains strict controls over Internet companies and requires those operating on the mainland to censor results the government deems dangerous or troublesome, including references to human rights issues and dissidents."
Google

Google's New Design 294

Posted by samzenpus from the google's-new-clothes dept.
smitty777 writes "You may have already noticed some of the changes in Google as part of their multi-month design slam. These design changes include information architecture focus, seamless device integration, and simplifying a number of elements. According to the official Google blog, the changes over the next few months will affect Google Search, Maps and Gmail. The black navigation bar in place right now is also part of the Google +Project."
Google

FTC To Open Antitrust Investigation Against Google 131

Posted by timothy from the still-waiting-on-the-congressional-search-engine dept.
itwbennett writes "According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is preparing to serve subpoenas to Google as a first step in a broad antitrust investigation focusing on whether Google search is unfairly driving traffic to its other sites. Representatives of Google and the FTC declined to comment on the report, although an FTC spokesperson did deny that the report came from them."
Facebook

Google Hits One Billion Unique Visits In a Month 126

Posted by samzenpus from the they-grow-up-so-fast dept.
BogenDorpher writes "According to statistics from ComScore, for the first time ever, a website drew one billion visitors worldwide in just one month. Guess what website came out on top? Google of course. Microsoft and Facebook rounded out the top three. From the article: 'Though Google captured the most visitors last month, users collectively spent the most time at Facebook--250 billion minutes in May, compared with 200 billion minutes at Google and 204 billion at Microsoft."
China

Huawei Calls Charge of Unfair Government Help 'Hogwash' 90

Posted by timothy from the let's-call-it-industrial-policy-fellas dept.
itwbennett writes "Huawei's $30 billion credit line from the Chinese Development Bank gives it an unfair advantage over rivals, said U.S. Export-Import Bank Chairman and President Fred Hochberg in a speech Wednesday at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. 'The reality is [that] opaque state-directed capital allows foreign governments to target their financing at specific sectors and companies, while aggressively grabbing market share in an attempt to dominate a market,' Hochberg said. Responding to the charges, a Huawei spokesman called the charge 'hogwash.'"
Government

Sunlight Foundation Announces 'Sarah's Inbox' 227

Posted by timothy from the so-very-much-unveiling dept.
Eponymous Hero writes "In a sequel to elenasinbox.com, the publicly released emails of Supreme Court justice Elena Kagan, Sunlight Foundation has unveiled sarahsinbox.com to offer you easy access and search to Sarah Palin's recently released emails. If that doesn't flip your bits, have a gander at some of the tools Sunlight Foundation offers relating to government watchdogging, like Poligraft, or Inbox Influencer."
China

China Blocks Web Searches About Protests 134

Posted by Soulskill from the must-want-users-to-make-their-own dept.
itwbennett writes "China is blocking searches on Google and microblogs for Zengcheng, a city in the country's Guangdong province, where protests have erupted against local authorities. The move is part of an effort to suppress information on the rioting."
Google

Google Launches Search By Image 109

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-see-what-you-did-there dept.
kai_hiwatari writes "At the Inside Search event being held at San Francisco, Google has announced a new addition to its search features — Search by Image. The Search by Image feature is something like Google's image search application for mobile devices — Google Goggles — but for the desktop."
Google

Google Should Be Logging In To Facebook 95

Posted by Soulskill from the playing-nice-with-the-other-loudmouth dept.
Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes "Facebook indirectly accused Google of creating dummy accounts to log in and spider information from their site, and Google denied the charge. But if Google wants to help users discover what strangers can find out about them, then spidering Facebook with dummy accounts is exactly what they should be doing." Read on for the rest of his thoughts.
Google

Google Tags Content Creators 67

Posted by samzenpus from the all-due-credit dept.
bizwriter writes "Google announced that it will support authorship HTML tags, a way to associate Web content with the individuals who create it. Suddenly, search engines know when one person was responsible for a body of work, no matter where content appears on the Web. If Google incorporates this into page relevance and ranking, as it is considering, the result could change the balance of power between those who create and those who publish."
Google

Schema.org — Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! Agree On Markup Vocabulary 192

Posted by Soulskill from the executive-decision dept.
aabelro writes "Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! have decided to propose a common markup vocabulary, Schema.org, based on the Microdata format, simplifying the job of webmasters who want to give meaning to their web pages' content." Manu Sporny, chair of the W3C group that created RDFa, added his (personal) dissenting opinion about Schema, calling it a 'false choice,' and saying, "The entire Web community should decide which features should be supported – not just Microsoft or Google or Yahoo."
Privacy

Anatomy of a Privacy Nightmare 275

Posted by Roblimo from the jump-in-a-hole-and-pull-it-in-behind-you dept.
itwbennett writes "Gennette Cordova knows first-hand how impossible it is to erase yourself from the Internet. The 21-year-old college student was the hapless recipient of a photo of a Congressman Anthony Weiner bulging in his boxers. Ms. Cordova then 'watched in sheer disbelief as my name, age, location, links to any social networking site I've ever used, my old phone numbers and pictures have been passed along from stranger to stranger.' She then tried to remove her personal information from the web, one social network at a time. But the fact is, 'until a site's Webmaster removes the offending content, it will remain accessible via search engines like Google,' says blogger Dan Tynan."
The Internet

What Internet Searches Reveal About Human Desire 224

Posted by timothy from the particular-subset-of-human-desire dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Time Magazine reports that computational neuroscientists Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam analyzed the results of 400 million online searches for porn and uncovered some startling insights into what men and women may really want from each other. In the first place, although you can find an instance of any kind of porn you can imagine on the internet, people search for and spend money and time on 20 sexual interests, which account for 80% of all porn — the top 10 sex-related searches include variations on youth (13.5 per cent), breasts (4 per cent), cheating wives (3.4 per cent) and cheerleaders (0.1 per cent) among others. Many are surprised that "cheating wives" is such a popular search but Ogas says that it's one of the top interests all around the world because men are wired to be sexually jealous but simultaneously they're also sexually aroused so if a man sees a woman — including his partner — with another man, he becomes more aroused. Women prefer stories to visual porn by a long shot and the most popular erotica for women is the romance novel because female desire requires multiple stimuli simultaneously or in quick succession."
Government

RIAA-Backed Warrantless Search Bill In California 208

Posted by timothy from the what's-a-few-amendments-among-friends dept.
lordvramir writes "If you run a CD or DVD duplication company and you're based in California, you may soon be subject to warrantless searches in order to 'fight piracy.' California Senate Bill 550, introduced by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), has slowly begun making its way through the state legislature as a way to cut down on counterfeit discs, but critics worry that it may open the door to Fourth Amendment violations." This fits in well with other recent moves to neuter the Fourth Amendment.
Facebook

Bing Adds 'Like' Button 119

Posted by CmdrTaco from the still-waiting-for-hate-button dept.
Tiek00n wrote in with something that might sound familiar, saying, "Microsoft on Monday expanded its use of Facebook within its Bing search engine, adding 'likes' and recommendations from friends and strangers into search results. Going forward, if you search for something one of your Facebook friends has 'liked,' Bing will note that in its search results. Did your sister and roommate 'like' a nearby Italian restaurant? A small photo, the Facebook 'thumbs up' icon, and a note that said they approve will show up in search results, Microsoft said."

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