The current Google Books website

Seems a lot of people must still be reading books. Undeniable proof to this, can be found on various reports around the internets, claiming Google is set to launch it very own e-book store come this summer. The name is Google Editions, catchy isn’t it? Not many details are out at this moment, but it appears it will be a cloud service, operating much like Google Books, allowing buyers to browse, bookmark and keep their purchased books online.

Unlike competing e-book stores which offer books for download in various formats, Google Editions will make purchased books available to read via a web interface. This should mean you could access and read books via practically any web browsing enabled gadget at your disposal. It does leave questions unanswered about offline reading though. I know I’d like to be able to read an e-book at places where internet access is unavailable. And yes there are still some such places around the globe.

Given Google Editions is going to have to compete with the likes of already established e-book sellers such as Amazon’s Kindle Store, Barnes & Noble and Apple’s iBooks Store this is one market fight that will be interesting to watch.

If a participating city-state would engage in any conflict and violate the truce, they were given stiff fines and forbidden from competing in the games. Something which was considered a big disgrace.

There is a modern movement created to uphold the Olympic Truce. The United Nations have adopted the “Olympic Truce Resolution” for the Beijing 2008 games. Yet we see two of the countries competing in the games at this moment, Georgia and Russia, engaging in military conflicts over land disputes in South Ossetia.

A land dispute which has been ongoing for more than 15 years, since Ossetian separatists started a fight for independence from Georgia in 1991-1992.

And for some reason, it had to escalate to armed conflicts over innocent civilians now, during the Olympic Games. Of course, I am not saying that should problems arise a country should just be “non-violent” and not defend it’s sovereignty.The political agenda here seems to be far more complicated and sinister in this case. Both parts could have tried diplomacy before waging war on one another. That did not happen. It was a “fight first, and then make pleas for sympathy to our cause to the international community”.

There should be more education on what the Olympic Truce is about, and nations need to start respecting it again. If we cannot respect and uphold peace for a couple of weeks every four years, what kind of civilization is this we’re supposed to have produced for ourselves. How hostile and unstable modern society has become?

I can only hope these conflicts will soon seize, and that the two countries will follow the example of their athletes and reconcile.

Cuil co-founders Anna Patterson, Louis Monier and Russell Power are clearly set out to take on their former employer, Google. Although Cuil’s technology may very well be able to do that – I don’t quite understand all the “look at me, I can do it better than Google” approach. Read this for instance. When you start typing a search term in Cuil, auto-complete sets in suggesting possible search terms. It can even suggest a direct website link. This is described on Cuil as “We let you look before you leap, because not everyone feels lucky.”, an obvious reference to Google’s “I Feel Lucky” search button directing you to the most likely possible match of your search to a website. It’s a little funny, not in a bad way though.

Getting passed the “I want Google’s head on a platter” hype, Cuil does seem promising. They claim to have new search architecture and algorithms in place which will provide for better, more relevant results. Twiceler, the search engine’s spider is set out to crawl every page on the World Wide Web. Already indexing more than 121 billion web pages. Popularity will not be the main factor of assessing a web page’s relevance to a search term. Their deeper content analysis Cuil says will provide for better results.

Another aspect of searching with Cuil which sets it apart from competitors is Privacy. Very simply put in their own words “when you search with Cuil, we do not collect any personally identifiable information, period. We have no idea who sends queries: not by name, not by IP address, and not by cookies”. Several competing search engines, store users’ web search history on their servers, claiming it helps them provide more relevant content. Cuil does not.

Venturing from the simple search box at the front page of Cuil to the results display, the user interface is unlike most you’ve grown to expect when you search the web. Instead of the conventional list style results, you get 3 columns by default, which can be switched to 2. For each resulting web page, there is a title, some of the contained text, and a picture. A format you’d most likely expect at News websites displaying their articles.

An “Explore by Category” box on the top-right, allows for quick searches on other subjects belonging in categories your current search is also listed in. Tabs on the top of the page provide quick switches to other relevant results.

Another thing that caught my attention though, is Cuil uses e-mail. I mean there are no forms there, besides the search form. If you want your website included in their index, you have to send them e-mail! If you want to inquire about employment, send feedback, make questions, just send them e-mail! They even use the same e-mail addresses to accept feedback on different issues, which means they actually have to read the messages instead of automating actions and replies. Impressive.

Still Google does continue to claim it indexes more on the web than Cuil, without revealing any numbers. And many users point out Google continues to offer more search results for the same search terms. Considering Cuil launched just yesterday, I think we all ought to wait a while and see. It may just be a bit to early to provide any constructive criticism.

Has anyone been using Cuil lately? I’d like to hear what you think of it!

Imagine in the near future, you can have a website address in the form of www.john.doe, www.mary.lovescats, www.government.office and www.summer.vacation.

Whether this will all lead to confusion or it will aid in the direction of an even more semantic web, it remains to be seen. Trademarks on web addresses will be hard to keep up with though. With the 21 top-level domains currently available, many companies choose to register their name with all in order to avoid consumer confusion and fraud. If there where hundreds of possible web address suffixes, that’d be a nearly impossible task to handle.

Among other decisions reached by the ICANN board in Paris, is the future support of other languages in web address extensions. Presently, you can only use 37 roman characters in a web address. Support for Asian, Arabic, Eastern European and Greek scripts should become available once that decision goes into implementation.

According to the ICANN this is the “biggest expansion to Internet in forty years”, and with a constantly growing demand for more websites and domain names, a much awaited for expansion by many.

WHY!?

First thought when I noticed that, was my browser had been hijacked and that I was at a phishing site or fraudulent Google imitator. I think that might have been preferable.

The new favicon used by Google is… so bad, it could almost be characterized “evil”. Come on! Is that the best a company of Google’s gravity can come up with? Who is responsible? A 5 year old using an online favicon maker?

Right, that’s just my opinion. I don’t like it. I wish it would go away. But why should they listen to me, or the voice of reason for that matter? They can even make an animated favicon featuring a purple tortoise belly dancing and get away with it. I am not saying the previous icon was a work of art or something. But at least everyone was familiar with and used to it.

If you can’t make something better, at least don’t make it worse. Please.

Among all the news, everything that is happening on this world this week, this article caught my attention as something to share. Besides, all the serious stuff, you probably already know…

The platypus, one of natures most … WEIRD! … yet wonderful creations has had it’s genetic code deciphered by scientists. Another astonishing breakthrough for science! OK, that may sound like I’m making fun, but seriously scientists say being able to study one of the world’s early mammals still in existence may give us clues as to how humans and other species evolved. That is, if you believe in evolution. I never make any assumptions about my readers.

I remember the first time I heard of the platypus. For years I wanted one as a pet. And then I started going to school. Imagine though a pet that is part beaver, part duck and part reptile. And it swims like a fish too! haha! Who can ask more from their pet? Granted it’s also venomous.

You can find out more about the Platypus on Wikipedia, or read the BBC article on the Platypus genetic code unravelled.

On a more serious note though, I think we shouldn’t immediately outcast the European Parliament’s amendment as “funny” and nonsense. They truly are not protecting online piracy. They are trying to protect civil liberties online, which are caught up in an ongoing battle between pirate file sharers and media companies.

The pictures show how the Firefox logo resembles the star V838 Monocerotis in the Monoceros (Greek for Unicorn) constellation, which is 20,000 light years away from our very own Sun. Prominent figures in conspiracy theory circles now evaluate V838 as a possible home of whatever intelligent beings brought “Firefox” to our own planet.

And there is at least one mad scientist who thinks the current lead developers in the Mozilla Firefox team are actually aliens descended from those first visitors. Reliable sources who cannot be named due to psychiatrist-patient confidentiality are however claiming there is no threat to planet Earth. In reality, the “Firefox people/aliens” are on the world’s side, protecting us from world domination by their evil rival, a piece of software which backed by an evil alien warlord clan has found it’s way into every computer and is near impossible to get rid of.

There is at least one recently documented visit of a U.F.O. from Firefox’s constellation. Where else could it have been from? Look at the crop circle below… That is a satellite image, directly from Google Maps. Does that look familiar?

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Since the turn of the year, the price of gold has increased 20%, can any investment be that good? Other than oil perhaps.

And since everyone is heading back to the good old gold rush days, you may have to reconsider on how real the gold you have in stock is. Especially if you ever traded in Ethiopia, since this shocking article reveals the National Bank of Ethiopia has payed millions of dollars to buy what turned out to be… gold plated steel… ouch!

If Yahoo is bought though – at whatever astronomical price, it will come to prove that EVERYTHING on this world is FOR SALE.

Is that a bad thing? Yes, and no. Ah, I love blog topics when there is no obvious conclusion.

Money where made to circulate. And this is a free economy (more or less), so if you can buy something and want to, you might as well go ahead.

Microsoft obviously wants Yahoo. In plain terms, Microsoft is not in a position to compete with Google on the Internet. So, why go out and build quality services which will attract devoted users, when you can buy a ready made company like Yahoo?

However, there are rules in competition. Microsoft has already been fined for it’s practices by the European Union – so I don’t see how a Microsoft – Yahoo merger would be seen favorably in Europe when it will almost definitely conflict with anti-monopoly regulations.

I practically grew up with Yahoo. I remember it as far back as 1996-7, before even Google came into the picture. So I may be a bit sentimental about seeing it diminished or absorbed into Microsoft. Never mind that, this is a “money talks” society, so the way Yahoo has been cornered, I doubt it will manage to continue as is.

I also doubt that a Microsoft-Yahoo merger would be able to better rival Google. In fact, I think the one who will most benefit will be none other than Google itself. For so many reasons. Primarily because Microsoft would again mess up and fail to drive Yahoo to success.

Stories are out already, about a possible counter-proposal to Yahoo from Google. I cannot imagine how people over at Yahoo feel right now, it seems like one of these situations where you would have to choose over the lesser evil. “Which competitor do I surrender to?”, questions must have already been posed.

Oh well. What do you think about it? Would you rather see Yahoo bought by Microsoft, Google, or continue on its own?