Could Bing be the search engine that kills Google?

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

Once upon a time, when Google could declare “We’re not evil” without hundreds of thousands of shareholders to worry about, search engines were just search engines. Now, it appears, they’re not. Microsoft is calling Bing a decision engine, Wolfram Alpha is a computational knowledge engine, and Yahoo is… well, let’s not go there.

You could argue Microsoft’s position is born out of desperation. On whatever metric you chose to use, MSN Search (or Windows Live, I lost track of its names in the end) fell behind Google. Number of users, amount of money it made, brand awareness, effectiveness of the raw search – Google kept on winning. (more…)

The new Search Engine Optimization – SEO 2.0

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

Recently I decided to brush up on my knowledge of search engine optimisation (SEO) to see what the current view of best practice is. I was amazed at how things have changed…

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The future for Acrobat.com – and for the office?

Monday, June 15th, 2009

Those with a long memory may well remember Adobe’s first attempt to conquer the business market with the launch of Acrobat Exchange and its promise of the “paperless office” built around the round-robin swapping of PDFs. The arrival of the internet largely put paid to that original all-encompassing vision but now, sixteen years later, Adobe is back for a second bite at the cherry with the announcement of the official out-of-beta launch of Acrobat.com.

So is Adobe likely to be any more successful this time around? The recent press briefing, given by product manager Eric Larsen and hosted within Acrobat.com itself, was certainly interesting…

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The people vs Wolfram Alpha

Monday, May 18th, 2009

Since Wolfram Alpha launched at the weekend, I’ve lost count of the number of articles I’ve read in which the author asks it inane questions and laughs when it falls flat. Even our own Darien Graham-Smith (along with several others in the office) seems almost delighted to prod and poke at it to find instances where Wolfram’s big pre-launch claims can be mocked – usually by comparison to Google or Wikipedia.

Unfortunately, this is something that was bound to happen given the publicity the site has received in recent weeks from the mainstream press. The big problem occurs because most people are attempting to hastily test the new engine without any real reason to be using it. (more…)

9½ things Wolfram Alpha doesn’t know

Monday, May 18th, 2009

So, after months of anticipation, Wolfram Alpha is finally here. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve found it a big disappointment.

I mean, obviously it was never going to slay Google on its first day. But after watching Stephen Wolfram’s pre-launch screencast I did believe it was at least going to be a credible alternative information source, offering authoritative and structured answers in a way no traditional search engine could aspire to.

Sadly, now Wolfram Alpha’s here it turns out that it doesn’t bloody know anything.

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Google News – Friend or Foe?

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Suddenly the world at large seems to have woken up to the fact that ad-funded delivery doesn’t work as a business model for large-scale web publishing. Worse, the big beasts of print publishing, the brand-name newspapers, are effectively forced to cut their own throats by providing their print content online for free. 

Rubbing salt in the wounds is Google News, the simple aggregation portal that is managing to make money from the newspapers’ content that it is using for free (aka “stealing”).  Some publishers are even threatening to withdraw access to their content unless Google starts paying them.

So is Google a villain here? And can the ad-funded revenue model be made to work?

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Hands on with the HTC Magic, the second Android phone

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

I’ve just come back from the launch of the second Google Android phone to be released, and I must say I’m impressed. Its sleek profile and solid build quality are a world away from the dumpy and disappointing T-Mobile G1, which we reviewed at the back end of last year.

UPDATE: Read the full review here

It’s been manufactured by the same company as the G1 – HTC – the firm also behind the Touch Diamond2 we reviewed last week, and it’s available for free on a £35 per month tariff, which gets you 600 minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited data.

And while I’m none too keen on the fact that it’s only going to be available in white, I did warm immediately to the solid and sleek feel of this new Android phone. It weighs 118.5g and its dimensions  - 55mm wide, 113mm tall and just 13.65mm thick – make it extremely pocket friendly. The gloss finish, sculpted lines and oversized trackball all contribute to a sophisticated look that the G1 could only dream of.

Apart from the looks, though, the key difference is the on-screen touch keyboard and I was keen to try this out…

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Newspapers find a common enemy: Google

Monday, April 6th, 2009

Having fought tooth-and-nail against each other for years, the world’s embattled newspaper groups appear suddenly to be brothers-in-arms against a common enemy: Google.

Last week The Guardian led the way with a submission to the Government’s Digital Britain report, claiming that the search giant was effectively pick-pocketing its content.  “The argument has traditionally been that search engines and aggregators provide players like guardian.co.uk with traffic in return for the use of our content, and this is enough to make the relationship symbiotic and equal,” the submission stated. “However, there is a vast over-supply in the market of advertising inventory, and yields have come under severe downward pressure. As a result, the value of the traffic generated by search engines and aggregators has reduced significantly.”

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The best tech April fools stories

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

It’s that time of year again when the incredulous cower behind their couches as the normally sombre tech industry unleashes its inner sarcasm and goes hunting for the naive. We’ll be keeping an eye out for the best April fool’s japes doing the rounds and collecting them here, but if you’ve noticed any drop us a line and we’ll add them to the list.

Opera facial control

First up is this humdinger from Opera, eulogising the latest development in Opera 10 – facial control. From the press release: “Opera Face Gestures enable anyone with a Webcam to control their browser moving only their face. Based on the same architecture as Opera’s Mouse Gestures, Face Gestures makes surfing the Web as easy as smiling, batting an eye lash or flaring a nostril.”

Click here for the utterly brilliant demonstration

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Google predicts Arctic chill for Scotland

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

The residents of Stornoway in Scotland might want to put an extra log or two on the fire. According to a rather alarming Google weather report, the Outer Hebrides resort is facing unseasonal temperatures of -17C over the next few days. 

The BBC, on the other hand, has the minimum temperature pegged at a far more reasonable 5-6C. What does Google know that the Met Office doesn’t? Or is this a direct result of having eco-doom monger Al Gore as a Google advisor?

We demand answers.

(Thanks to PC Pro reader Phil Taylor for the tip-off.)