Web

Google News Looks To Improve Quality Of Search Results
Google is busily hatching plans to dramatically improve the results of internet news searches by introducing a system that ranks articles by quality rather than just their date and relevance to search terms.
Currently, typing something like ‘Iraq’ into Google, will generate zillions of “hits”, ranked in order of relevance or by date, so that the most recent or most focused appear at the top of a monster list.
The problem with this approach is that news stories from more authoritative sources – say the CNN or the BBC – can be knocked off the first page of results because they are not as recent or as relevant to the keywords typed into the search box.
Google hopes to address this problem by building a smartypants database that will compare the track record and credibility of global news sources and adjust the ranking of any search results accordingly.
The database will do its thang by continually monitoring the number of stories from all news sources while making a note of average story length, number with bylines, the number of the news agencies cited, along with how long they have been in business.
And there’s more! Google’s database will also record the number of staff a news source employs, monitor the volume of internet traffic to its website and check its international appeal by counting the number of countries accessing the site.
A big box stuffed full of levers and blinking lights will then absorb all these parameters, weigh them according to a clever-clogs formulae it is constructing, and then distil them down to create a single value.
We like to think that this number – then used to rank the results of any news search – is noisily outputted on a long string of ticker tape, but we might be getting a bit carried away.
Google’s ambitious system was unveiled by patents filed in the US and around the world in 2003 which revealed that the same methodology could be employed to rank other search results, such as sales and services.
Campaigners and activists may not welcome this news though, as Google’s proposed system suggests that it will be harder for independent, non-mainstream news sites to appear in the top rankings.
One of the beauties of the web is that of you type in the name of the uber-corporates Nestle into Google, the Nestlé boycott campaign appears on the first page of results.
I wouldn’t like that to change.
Google
4 May, 2005
Yahoo 360 To Import Content From Non-Yahoo Services
Yahoo has announced plans to ramp up the feature set of its Yahoo 360 social networking and blogging service, currently in beta.
According to Paul Brody, director of community products at Yahoo, the company intends to let users import content, such as photos and music, from non-Yahoo applications.
“Some of the things that people very much want to do is to share content from other sources outside of Yahoo,” observed Brody, “[Yahoo] 360 right now does a great job of allowing you to share the content you might have already on Yahoo.”
The Yahoo 360 service entered an invite-only limited beta period in late March allowing participating users to publish blogs, share content and post pictures with control over who they shared their content with.
The service currently only allows users to include content from other Yahoo services such as Yahoo Photos and Yahoo Music, but now Yahoo are to offer the inclusion of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds from other sources.
Brody stated that he wanted the Yahoo 360 service to be an “open” product, adding, “If you have content anywhere on the Internet, you should be able to share it with friends and family through Yahoo 360.”
The beta period has given Yahoo some useful feedback about their users’ needs – with the company now working with bloggers to give them greater flexibility in customising their blogs and adding features such “trackback.” Trackbacks create a links between related information on different blogs, further explained in a link below.
“Yahoo 360 should be made available to the public in the next few weeks, by which time the capability to share non-Yahoo content will also be included.” Brody commented.
Localised versions of Yahoo 360 will be launched soon in some countries in Asia and Europe, according to Brody. The Yahoo blog service is already available in some countries like Japan and Korea.
Yahoo’s My Web Upgrades Personal Search Tools
Google Introduces Local Search To UK
Yahoo 360 Service Blends Blogging And Social Networking Tools
TrackBack description from sixapart
3 May, 2005
Firefox Hits 50 Million Downloads
Like a hungry, hyperactive terrier, Firefox continues to take great chunks out of Microsoft’s market share as the Mozilla Foundation announces its 50 millionth download.
To commemorate this grand occasion, the foundation has created 50 limited edition coins, to be dished out to the best contributors to their forums.
An additional mystery prize will be given to the owner of the Web site responsible for the 50 millionth download.
“It’s funny how the counter just blows by 50 million without a care in the world, isn’t it?” Mozilla developer Blake Ross purred on the foundation’s Web site. “But it’s not just a number to us. It’s a validation of half a decade of work, and the beginning of half a decade more.”
Fully released last November, Firefox has delivered a turbo-charged size nine up the backside of the Web browser market which seemed to be heading for stagnant domination by Microsoft’s ubiquitous Internet Explorer.
The adoption of Firefox has been driven by reports of seemingly endless security holes found in Internet Explorer, with some prominent security researchers even recommending against using IE if possible.
Security conscious companies have taken heed of this advice, with TechWeb News reporting that the Firefox browser is used by more than 10 percent of business professionals, adding that the number could “more than double” by the end of the first half of the year.
Victor Janulaitis, chief executive of management consultants Janco, commented: “Since the fourth quarter of 2004, Firefox usage has more than doubled among business professionals. That rate of adoption is expected to continue next quarter, when the open-source browser is expected to reach up to 25 percent of the market.”
The next version of Internet Explorer is expected to include enhanced security and many of Firefox’s popular features (such tabbed browsing), but Microsoft won’t be shipping the IE 7 beta until this summer.
Firefox has also seen several critical security flaws emerging over the past few months, but it is still generally perceived as a ‘safer’ browser.
FireFox Browser Gains Popularity
Firefox Used By 1 Out 10 Business Professionals
Mozilla
3 May, 2005
Pigeon Enabled Internet Faster Than ADSL
This has Friday Story written all over it. A few Israeli geeks set up a test to compare the speed of delivering data via pigeon (PEI – Pigeon Enabled Internet, as they’ve labelled it) compared with ADSL.
They’re building on Wi-Fly research carried out in Bergen, Norway a few years ago, when paper was used as the data medium. The latest version uses memory cards, 20-22 distributed over three pigeons, enabling much more data to be carried.
In total, 4Gb of data was transferred over 100Km – which, as they point out, is far superior to WiFi. Despite one of the pigeons being delayed, initially appearing to get lost on his journey (packet loss as they refer to it), they achieved a transfer rate of 2.27 Mbps, exceeding the commercially available ADSL rates in Israel of 0.75 – 1.5 Mbps.
As you know, the A in ADSL stands for Asynchronous, so the transferred rates listed equate to the speed that information is received. Upload rates are significantly lower. By their calculations, uploading 4Gb of data on ADSL would take around 96 hours – making the pigeon transfer significantly more efficient, equivalent to a T1 connection at 1.5Mbps.
As they point out, the pigeon gives pretty high latency (it takes quite a while for the first bit of data to arrive), but once it arrives, all of the 4Gb is delivered at once.
I’d often thought how price efficient the postal transfer of DVD’s was. 4.7Gb transferred overnight for around 50 pence – try buying bandwidth at that rate.
Chat around the office lead us to wonder what the next in the endless list of variation on creatures being used to transfer information would be. Nicolas Nova has provided the answer – Snail power.
PEI (Pigeon Enabled Internet) is FASTER then ADSL (via Nicolas Nova, through engadget)
Credit for images: Gil Pry-dvash, Gilad Reshef, Shai Vardi and Ami Ben Bassat
29 April, 2005
Sony PSP Review: PlayStation Portable – Not Just Games
We’ve published another piece by Steve, where he covers How-To get your Sony PSP to access the Internet.
Sony have produced a portable games console which on its own merit is going to sell a lot of units. However it has the possibility of becoming a portable media hub that will give even Microsoft a jolt by driving into their Portable Media Center market.
The unit isn’t small, but small enough so it could just about fit inside a large coat pocket. It’s got a fantastic wide screen that is extremely crisp and sharp, 4.3 inches across, supporting 480 x 272 pixels and 16.77 million colours.
The system uses Sony’s 1.8″ UMD optical disk which comes in a protective sheath (like a minidisc). They’re small enough so you could easily carry a few around with you (though don’t eject them unless there’s something solid and accessible beneath you as they have a tendency to fly out and disappear somewhere awkward). There’s also a Memory Stick due (32MB supplied) to allow game saves and other features.
It’s also got WiFi (or to be pedantic IEEE 802.11b which is the 11Mb/s older version) built-in that can be set-up in AdHoc mode allowing game play with other PSPs, or in Infrastructure mode which goes through an access point. Though there doesn’t seem to be any Internet utilities on the device yet (apart from a network update section, which allows the unit to update its system software from Sony i.e. your WiFi connection must connect to the Internet). However it is rumoured that the Opera browser is being ported and there’ll be a firmware update for that, email and calendaring.
The system looks like a USB memory device when attached to a PC (which basically gives access to the Memory Stick) and you can store audio and video on it. Sensibly, Sony support MP3 directly on the PSP, though it will also support ATRACplus encoded music. Interestingly, if someone decides to produce UMD music disks, they only support ATRACplus and linear PCM). Video is H.264/MPEG-4 AVC on the UMD and MPEG-4 SP, AAC on the memory stick.
The CPU runs up to 333MHz and seems to have the grunt when needed.
Multiple languages are supported (including system, video, subtitles, etc) but it seems that game menus are hardcoded by the manufacturer, so if it’s say, a Japanese game, it will have Japanese menus even though the system settings are in English.
Media Center
Once the PSP has real Internet capability it will be a media powerhouse, the screen size is about right for watching movies on the go. You could do this now by converting a current MPEG-2 (DVD) to MPEG-4 and storing it on the memory stick (ignoring all legal ramifications), but in future it’s more than likely you’ll be able to stream movies (or audio) directly to the unit. Sony as a music publisher and movie house, is likely to want to sell its content to a market of portable viewers – it owns both ends of the stick.
Of course, Internet is the key, as stated previously the only utility Sony provide, is to update the firmware of the PSP itself, it’s completely automatic (once WiFi has been configured). The unit goes to Sony’s site, pulls down the new firmware to the memory stick and then loads it into the unit from there.
We’ve published another piece by Steve, where he covers How-To get your Sony PSP to access the Internet.
Look out for a further piece that we’ll be running over the next few weeks on the pros and cons of importing a PSP.
29 April, 2005
Yahoo’s My Web Upgrades Personal Search Tools
The battle between Google and Yahoo continues to heat up, with Yahoo ramping up the feature set of its ‘My Web’ suite of personal search tools.
My Web is a personal search engine that lets users save, recall and share resources with others using a selection of Yahoo tools, such as email and IM (instant messaging).
“Yahoo Search is focused on providing innovative, useful technologies that enable people to find, use, share, and expand knowledge,” boomed Salim Mitha, director, Yahoo Search, UK & Ireland.
“My Web is the next step in our vision of integrating search, personal search and community by providing users an easy way to have their own personal web search experience that incorporates the best of the Web and what matters most to them.”
Yahoo claim that their service is “better than bookmarks”, with users able to save an exact copy of a page along with the link, so that saved content will always be there when users return to the page.
Users can store thousands of pages, with tools allowing users to organise and search the content and access it from any computer.
Shared pages can be published using RSS (Rich Site Summary) with users given the option of creating public links pages.
My Web users will soon be able to share data with the Yahoo 360 social network, which allows users to share pictures, music and other data.
Yahoo’s search history tool bears more than a passing similarity to the one released by Google last week and reflects the fierce competition between the two companies.
Yahoo are hoping that these new features will send people flocking to their portal services and thus generate lots and lots of lovely advertising revenue.
UPDATE: Thanks to Steve Rioux for getting in touch, telling us of a very similar service he started almost a year ago called “Smart Note”. You can find it at Klogger.com
Yahoo My Web
28 April, 2005
BT Rich Media And Sportfive To Stream WorldCup Qualifiers
BT Rich Media has cuddled up to Sportfive, a French sports marketing group, and announced a partnership to make 2006 Football World Cup qualifying and friendly games available to fans streamed over broadband on the Internet.
Under the terms of the agreement, Sportfive – owners of the largest portfolio of European qualifying games – will use the BT Rich Media platform for publishing and distributing the video content.
Football bonkers viewers will be able to choose between 250Kbps or 500Kbps quality streams for approximately £7 (~US$13 ~€10), or alternatively download the entire match to keep forever for around £5 (~US$9.50 ~€7). As a long suffering Wales fan, I have to admit that there’s several games which I never wish to see again!
Not every match will be available online though, with only untelevised games being available to stream/download.
The games will be served up on http://www.qualifiers2006.com and promoted to over 10 million users via a range of affiliate sites such as soccernet.com,.teamtalk.com, sportinglife.com and rivals.net .
BT Rich Media will also be using the same technology to stream the forthcoming Scottish BT Cup Final at ScottishRugby.org.
BT Rich Media
Sportfive
28 April, 2005
Everquest II Virtual Goods Trading Endorsed By Sony’s Station Exchange
In an astonishing volte-face, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has announced that it now endorses the auctioning of virtual items from its massively popular online game, Everquest II – with the electronics giant pocketing a cut of the cash, naturally.
From late June 2005, Sony’s Station Exchange will provide an “Online Entertainment auction service” enabling players to buy and sell virtual items for real money.
Sony is introducing the service in an attempt to put a halt to ‘plat farmers’. These are dastardly rotters who use macros and bots to harvest rare items in games, level up characters, gain virtual money – and then flog them off on eBay.
Personally, we’d rather buy a round of lovely real ale than shell out for the Dark Lord of Deltronia’s Mystical Turbo Sword of Mwegneli, but as we’ve reported before (Sales in Virtual Goods Surpasses $100m, Nov 2004), considerable sums of money are changing hands for virtual items.
SOE director John Smedley has estimated that the market for virtual items is upwards of US$200m (€153m/£104) worldwide and the Station Exchange looks to be an attempt to grab a fat slice of this juicy pie.
So far, Sony have said that the Station Exchange system will only be available on dedicated new servers and that players will be able to transfer to an exchange server but not from one.
Naturally, gaming bulletin boards have been buzzing with debate about this development, with some expressing concerns that the ability for a rich user to “buy” success in a game effectively creates a ‘class’ divide.
‘Miss Minnie’ voiced her doubts on the urban75 gaming forum:
“There already is a ‘virtual class system’ within the game itself – you earn status and faction standing, money, prestige, titles, fancy clothes and transport, you start living in a hovel but can move on up to luxury apartments etc – But at least till now you could assume that most people had ‘earned’ those things by playing the game.
Now you won’t be sure if someone is a player or a buyer, so I suppose it could be said that touches of real-life’s ‘class system’ will be impinging.
In my opinion, that is the biggest shame – these games are supposed to be fantasy worlds and now real-life threatens to intrude.”
‘Private Storm’, on the same board, was more pragmatic:
“Trading of in-game items etc goes on and it is extremely difficult to stop it.”
“I’m not sure of the mechanics in EQII, but in WoW (World of Warcraft) they have mitigated the potential for selling items somewhat by introducing the concept of having things bind to that character when it is picked up, meaning you can’t transfer items to other players, hence no selling though eBay and the like.”
“I think Sony has said in their press release that they can’t ignore the fact that the selling of stuff goes on and that a lot of the support they have to give players is to do with this, so they’re creating controlled systems for it to happen. Virtual ‘harm reduction’ as it were.”
“People approach these types of game with different playing styles and with different things they want to get out of it. Such games often require a large amount of time and dedication to actually see any significant progression and not everyone has the time to realise this progress. If you are a cash rich, but time poor player, but still want to play the game, buying items etc to help you get the most out of your time online doesn’t seem so bad.”
“On the other hand, there are players that are time rich, but cash poor who can achieve a large amount of success within the game simply ‘cos they have the time to do so. They’ve invested a large amount of time and money in playing the game and obviously feel that they should be able to benefit in the real world from this. Selling the stuff they acquire seems reasonable in this context.”
For some gamers, an officially sanctioned auction site is an inevitable consequence of the growing popularity of virtual gaming, with Sony’s cut, a reasonable price to pay for eliminating a lot of scams.
If Station Exchange is successful, it may only be a matter of time before other auctions are permitted for SOE’s other games like Everquest I and Star Wars Galaxies.
Perhaps an official virtual auction site might prevent further tragedies like this story we covered last month: Legend of Mir 3 Gamer Killed After Selling Virtual Sword
Sony Station Exchange
urban75 bulletin boards
25 April, 2005
UK Students Peruse Porn And Study Online: Research
A government-backed study has revealed that more than one in 10 UK teenagers frequently use the Internet to look at “adult-only” Web sites.
Interviewed by the National Foundation for Economic Research, some 12% of 13 to 18-year-olds admitted that the quest for saucy titillation was one of their main reasons for going online.
However, homework was the most common reason for Internet use, with just over three-quarters using the Internet for research (and, in some cases, to plagiarise!)
The NFER study discovered that 52% used the Internet for Instant Messaging (IM) services and 36% logged on to shop for goods or services.
Some 18% looked up news and current affairs sites on the Web with 9% visiting discussion forums.
When it came to trusting the media, television was seen as the most trustworthy form of mass communication, with 48% trusting it completely or a lot.
Older students – already building up a healthy head of cynicism – were less convinced than younger ones of the level of honesty in the media, with newspapers faring worst overall, trusted by just 13%.
The eight-year NFER study was carried out on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills, and involved 6,400 pupils in 237 schools and 50 colleges in England.
National Foundation for Economic Research
Department for Education and Skills
19 April, 2005
GNER Promises Wi-Fi On All Trains By 2007
A UK train operator has claimed that its passengers will be able to wirelessly access the Internet on all its trains by May 2007 after widespread passenger take-up of the service.
As we reported in April 2004, the East coast rail firm GNER had already committed to rolling out Wi-Fi access to all 302 carriages of its Mark 4 fleet, but after successful trials has pledged to wire up the entire fleet.
The company reports that take-up of Wi-Fi in first class rose by almost fifty per cent within five months of its tenth train entering service, while in standard class usage figures increased by 54 per cent in the same period.
The company plans to have every train fitted by May 2007, offering first class passengers the service for free, while serfs in standard class will have to pay to shell out a minimum of £2.95 (€4.33, US$5.55) for 30 minutes.
The on-train Wi-Fi network connects to the Internet via a satellite link up, with the network dropping back to a GPRS connection when the train thunders through a tunnel.
GNER’s chief operating officer Jonathan Metcalfe enthused about onboard Wi-Fi, claiming that it would make the travelling experience “more enjoyable” for consumers and that it would “encourage more people to choose rail instead of driving or flying.”
Wi-Fi access on trains looks to become ubiquitous in the UK, with several train companies already offering – or in the process of offering – access to laptop-flipping passengers craving connectivity.
Travellers on the London to Brighton route (run by Southern Trains) can already enjoy Wi-Fi access, courtesy of a WiMax network running alongside the tracks, and the National Express Group has announced plans to install wireless access on trains run by at least three of its operating companies.
GNER Mobile Office
15 April, 2005