уторак, 17. април 2012.
среда, 16. фебруар 2011.
0 Google unveils 'smarter search'
Technology Reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley |
 Google says users are becoming more sophisticated at search |
Web giant Google has unveiled new products that it says will push search in a new direction.
Google is using so-called semantic web technology to leverage the underlying data on websites to enhance results.
"The race in search is far from over and innovation and continued improvement is absolutely pivotal," said Google's Marissa Mayer.
Google said it could not afford to rest on its laurels in the quest to build the perfect search engine.
Google has over 63% of the US market compared with rival Yahoo, on 20%.
"I've said this many times but search is still in its infancy. Our engineers are worried about what is the next big thing in search and how are they going to find it," said Ms Mayer, who is the vice-president of search products and user experience.
She said that last year Google had released more than 360 products and in the first quarter of this year it had been 120. Ms Mayer added that this was proof that "Google gets better all the time".
Google has in the past said that despite its lead in the marketplace, users were "one click away" from switching to other alternatives.
Vanessa Fox of SearchEngineLand told the BBC that Google's ability to constantly innovate gave them a leading edge.
"Google is saying: 'We have to provide for all searchers and do things at scale.' It means they have to launch all sorts of features while some companies can concentrate on just one thing. The key thing behind why they are still ahead is because they are able to innovate at such a pace," said Ms Fox.
Rich snippets
During the Searchology event at Google's Mountain View headquarters, Ms Mayer and her team showcased four new products that she said would give users a "different way to look at the web".
 Google Squared is still experimental and far from perfect, says the company |
Rich Snippets are search results that return more information in every listing.
For example, users looking for reviews of a new restaurant might get a "rich snippet" of average review scores, number of reviews and the restaurant's price range.
"This is a step toward making the whole internet smarter," said Google product manager Kavi Goel.
Rich snippets use the metadata from web pages, such as address information, calendar information and semantic web mark-up specifications, called Resource Description Frameworks.
The use of these so-called microformats allows the search engine to better understand the meaning of data and to employ it more intelligently.
Google can understand the relationship between different sets of data, and so can pull the correct address listing of a shop without that information having to be specifically tied together.
Google Squared
One of the more experimental products was called Google Squared, which will go public in the next month or so. It takes information from the web and displays it in a spreadsheet in "split seconds", something Ms Mayer said would normally take someone half a day to do.
During the demonstration, a query for "small dog" was typed into the search box. Seconds later a table popped up showing photographs of various dogs, their origin, weight and height in a clear and simple layout.
While Ms Mayer described this product as "transformative", she would only hint at the specific techniques that Google uses to drive this feature.
"I think we can open the kimono a little bit without talking about the computer science behind it.
"What they are basically doing is looking for structures on the web that seem to imply facts. Like something 'is' something.
"Different tables, different structures, and then corroborating the evidence around whether or not something is a fact by looking at whether that fact occurs across pages.
"This is all in the secret sauce of what we are doing and it takes an incredible amount of compute power to create those squares," said Ms Mayer.
'Refine, filter and view'
Google Search Options is a tool that is aimed at letting users "slice and dice" results so they can manipulate the information and get what they want faster.
 Search options is a "tool belt" giving new ways to interact with search |
They come into play after a normal web search and allow users to drill down into the results by offering an option for different genres like product reviews, forum posts or videos. Other choices include recently added blogs, images, timelines and so on.
Ms Mayer said this new feature should help people who struggled with the "vexing" problem of exactly what query they should type into the search box.
It is meant to give users the opportunity to "refine, filter and view results in a different way".
'Skymap'
A final feature had Ms Mayer "reaching for the stars" with an app for mobile phones using the Android operating system.
 Google said it was still working on finding keys but can find the stars |
"For a long time here at Google we joked could we actually find physical things like keys and now with the power and technology of Android, coupled with search, you can see we are starting to find some physical things like stars," said Ms Mayer.
Skymap displays the constellations. By using the smart phone's GPS capability, it offers the user a dynamic star map that knows where they are standing and which way they are pointing
The feature came about as a result of Google's 20% time, which allows engineers to spend one-fifth of their time working on pet projects.
The app is now available on the Android app market.
"Clearly Google is still pushing the envelope with all these new additions," said Rob Hof, Silicon Valley editor of Business Week.
"They are certainly continuing to improve daily. Whether it makes a difference and will stave off the competition, I don't know. But they are not standing still."
Ms Mayer said keeping the user happy was at the heart of everything they did.
"There is a shoe company called Stuart Weitzman and their slogan is 'a little obsessed with shoes'.
"Google is a little more than obsessed with search," confessed Ms Mayer.
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0 China joins supercomputer elite
China joins supercomputer elite | |||
China has become one of a handful of nations to own one of the top five supercomputers in the world. Its Tianhe-1 computer, housed at the National Super Computer Center in Tianjin was ranked fifth on the biannual Top 500 supercomputer list. The machine packs more than 70,000 chips and can compute 563 trillion calculations per second (teraflops). It is used for petroleum exploration and engineering tasks such as simulating aircraft designs. However, the fastest machine is the US-owned Jaguar supercomputer, which now boasts a speed of 1.759 petaflops. One petaflop is the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second. The Cray computer has more than 220,000 chips and is owned by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. It is used to conduct research in climate science, materials science and nuclear energy amongst other areas.
It has taken the top slot from another US machine, nicknamed Roadrunner. The IBM computer is owned by the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and was the first machine to push through the petaflop barrier. It is currently able to run at 1.042 petaflops and uses the powerful "cell" chip designed for the PlayStation 3. It is used to monitor the US nuclear stockpile, as well as conduct research into astronomy, genomics and climate change. The Top 500 list is dominated by machines in the US, which is home to 277 of ranked systems. It has eight of the top 10 machines. Europe has 153 systems on the list, including the world's fourth most powerful machine. The IBM BlueGene/P supercomputer at the Forschungszentrum Juelich (FZJ) in Germany is the fastest machine outside the US and is able to run at more than 800 teraflops. The UK has the largest number of European machines on the list, with 44 systems. | |||
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0 Libya: Protests 'rock city of Benghazi
Hundreds of people have clashed with police and pro-government supporters in the Libyan city of Benghazi, reports say.
Eyewitnesses told the BBC the overnight unrest followed the arrest of an outspoken critic of the government.
The lawyer was later said to have been released but the protests continued.
Pro-democracy protests have swept through several Arab countries in recent weeks, forcing the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt from power.
A call has been put out on the internet for protests across Libya on Thursday.
'Police injured'There is no independent confirmation of the overnight protests in Benghazi, but eyewitnesses say that at one stage some 2,000 people were involved.
They say stones were thrown at police who are said to have responded with water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets.
Footage of the unrest was later posted on the internet.
One clip on Facebook - published by someone who said it was recorded on Tuesday - showed people chanting outside what looked like a police station. Gunshots could be heard in the footage, and later an injured man is seen carried away from the scene.
Libya's state television showed pictures of several hundred people in Benghazi voicing their support for the government. The government has so far not commented on events in the port city, about 1,000 km (600 miles) east of the capital Tripoli.
Fourteen people were injured, including 10 police officers, the online edition of Libya's privately-owned Quryna newspaper reported.
One witness, who did not want to be named, later told the BBC: "A couple of people in the crowd started chanting anti-government slogans and the crowd took that on.
"But then there were clashes with pro-government supporters and then after a bit the pro-government supporters were dispersed and then the security services arrived and they dispersed the crowds with hot-water cannons."
Another Benghazi resident told Reuters on Wednesday that the city was now "quiet".
"The banks are open and the students are going to school," said the witness, who did not want to be identified.
Tuesday's protests began after the arrest of Fathi Terbil, who represents relatives of more than 1,000 prisoners allegedly massacred by security forces in Tripoli's Abu Salim jail in 1996, reports say.
Sources say he was held after telling relatives of current inmates that the prison was on fire and urging them to protest. Mr Terbil was later said to have been freed.
Reports from Libya say that 110 members of a banned militant group will be freed from Abu Salim later on Wednesday. It is not clear if the Benghazi clashes and the planned release of the inmates are connected.
Worrying signThe reported unrest comes a day before planned anti-government demonstrations on Thursday, which are being organised via the internet.
Col Gaddafi, who has been in power since 1969, has suggested he might join the protests himself, the BBC's Jon Leyne reports.
Col Gaddafi has always insisted that the country is run by a series of peoples' committees, though most outside observers believe it is a police state with him firmly in control, our correspondent says.
He adds that although the Benghazi protest is a worrying sign for Col Gaddafi, it is unlikely that the regime will lose power tomorrow.
The Middle East has seen a wave of protests fuelled by discontent over unemployment, rising living costs, corruption and autocratic leaderships.
This began with the overthrow of Tunisia's leader, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, in January.
Last week, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt resigned.
In recent days there have also been anti-government demonstrations in Yemen, Bahrain, and Iran.
Are you in Libya? Have you joined any protests or witnessed any of these events? You can send us your experiences using the form below.
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