Cuil - New on the block

Last night the newest search engine Cuil was launched.They say

Welcome to Cuil—the world’s biggest search engine. The Internet has grown. We think it’s time search did too.

Their claim is they search three times the number of pages as Google.As some blogs have foretold, it seems Google's announcement about the size of its search index was aimed to take some credit away from one of Cuil's main features: the size of its index with 120 billion pages. As Cuil's team features quite a number of Google alumni, comparisons with Google's search are inevitable. In comparison however, Cuil performs nowhere near as well as Google.

User Interface

With simplicity as core design element,the search form mimics Google Suggest.

Cuil takes a very different approach to displaying its results. Instead of a list, it displays results in three columns. The top right spot is reserved for related searches, which usually displays either five or ten main suggestions and then, on mouse-over, slides open and reveals a more detailed selection.


Founded by husband-and-wife team Tom Costello and Anna Patterson, a search-engine researcher from Stanford University and a Google technical lead, respectively, Cuil aims to rank the relevance of search results by content analysis rather than by popularity. It's an obvious swipe at Google, which treats links as popular votes in weighing relevance of a web page.

Cuil's privacy policy actually promises privacy: "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. Your search history is your business, not ours."

Though Cuil may aspire to challenge Google, it has some basic service and accuracy issues to deal with first.Backed by $33 million in venture capital, the search engine plans to begin processing requests for the first time on Monday.

For more check out, About Cuil

Netbooks - low cost ultra mobile laptops

I am fascinated by the emergence of a new category of PCs called Netbooks.What has started as an technological innovation threatens to replace the laptop.The message is loud and clear: The Netbooks are coming.Intel is launching its Atom processor. Acer is on the market with its Aspire one. Microsoft is adapting Windows to suit the market.

Netbooks are simple, inexpensive, compact mobile devices that can be used for surfing the Internet, emailing, working on basic office applications, listening to music and even making Skype video phone calls.

In short,these are just the right thing for globe-trotting business folks.For primarily word processing and surfing the net stuff these machines would more than suffice.Why then take the trouble of lugging around the conventional bulky ones and give the shoulders a hard time.

Intel's offering

Last week, Intel announced the world’s smallest, least power-hungry processor, packing 47 million of the world’s tiniest transistors ever squeezed into a slab of silicon, so small that 15 of them would fit into a 50-paise coin.

They called it the Atom. While ticking away at a very decent 1.8 billion times a second, it typically consumes around a watt or two of power compared to the 35 watts Intel’s own dual core PC processors demand today.

No one knows quite what shape these new Internet devices will take — but we can see a few technologies going into them: movable storage elements like hard disks will be replaced with rugged solid state storage based on Flash, the same technology that makes all those thumb drives.

They are optimized for Internet access and core computing functions either from directly from applications installed on the netbook itself or indirectly, via cloud computing.

It's no wonder that these Netbooks are selling like hot cakes. At the recently concluded Computex exhibition in Taiwan, the Netbooks were all the rage and they hogged the biggest headlines.

The cost of the Netbooks currently range from Rs.15,000 to Rs.23,000 and will come down further. One of the main reasons for such low prices is because of low cost chips from Intel, Via, AMD and Nvidia. The growth of these Netbooks are staggering and in a price conscious market like India, the sales will be massive.

From an Indian perspective,I see immense potentials for Netbooks in our nation. With most rungs of the society lacking of opportunities and information, the necessity for low cost technology is immense. It is not just a niche market need but more of a social revolution in the making. The burgeoning cell phone market is proof enough.

Acer Aspire One

• CPU type :: Intel Atom (Diamondville)
• CPU speed :: 1600 Mhz
• Graphics :: Intel GMA 950
• OS :: Linux Linpus Lite
• Display Size :: 8.9" 1024 X 600
• RAM :: 512 MB
• Battery capacity :: 26 (W/hr)
• Weight :: 950g
• Size (w/h/d mm) :: 248/170/29 mm
• Multi-format card reader
• USB2.0 (x3)
• Ethernet 10/100
• 802.11b/g
• Color Choices ::Coral Pink,Golden Brown,Sapphire Blue and Seashell White

Classmate PC

Intel Mobile Processor ULV 900MHz
Intel 915GMS
DDR2 256MB
7” 800x480 LED B/L
Built in Speakers and Microphone
10/100M Ethernet + WLAN 802.11 b/g with Antenna
4 hours battery time approx.
Win XPE / Linux





ASUS Eee PC

According to ASUS, the name Eee derives from "the three Es," an abbreviation of its advertising slogan for the device: "Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play".

On 29th January 2008, it was announced that 4G Eee PC would become available in India. It was released on February 2nd,2008 in the city of Mumbai and is being shipped with the customized Xandros OS and not the Windows XP Starter Edition. ASUS has planned to launch ASUS Eee PC with Windows XP later this year for Indian markets.

For more,read

• Thoughts on Netbooks
• Asus launches Eee PC
• Netbooks at Conputex
  

Famous thoughts on technology

Some famous and infamous people on technology

• Any science or technology which is sufficiently advanced is indistinguishablefrom magic - Arthur C. Clarke
• A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believein God.
  - Alan J. Perlis
• I like my new telephone, my computer works just fine, my calculator is perfect, but Lord, I miss my mind! - Author Unknown
• The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people. - Karl Marx
• Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. - Issac Asimov
• Why does this magnificent applied science which saves work and makes life easier bring us so little happiness? The simple answer runs: Because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it. - Albert Einstein
• If it weren't for electricity we'd all be watching television by candlelight - George Gobol
• To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer - Paul Ehrlich
• Chaos Theory is a new theory invented by scientists panicked by the thought that the public were beginning to understand the old ones. - Mike Barfield
• I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use - Galileo Galilei

For more,look up The Good and Bad of It

Tomorrow's mobile phones

"All phones today do the basics well," says Shiv Bakhshi, director of mobile device technology and trends at market analysis firm IDC. "But that won't be enough in the future."

Like concept cars and concept laptops these upcoming concept phones are aimed more at demonstrating new ideas than at being prototypes of actual soon-to-be-released devices. Sometimes outrageous, other times merely flights of fancy, they typically are developed by independent design firms working behind the scenes for phone vendors, although some are designed by the vendors themselves.

Here is a listing of few of those eye-popping designs

Shape shifter

Nokia's Morph - Made of flexible materials that mimic the suppleness and strength of spider's silk, the handset will -- as the name implies -- morph between what looks like a traditional mobile phone and a bracelet



BenQSiemens Snake phone
The concept phone looks like a snake and you can wrap it around your wrist.The how-to manual needs to do a lot of talking about the operational skills required though.

Synaptics Onyx concept phone





First keyless touch-screen mobile phone utilizing Synaptics Clearpad transparent touch-sensitive capacitive sensor

NEC Tag concept phone

Meet the soft shell mobile phone, giving you the most flexibility and interesting ways of using your communication device

"Tag" is a new, malleable, casual communicator. It is not only soft but also flexible, for example, it can be hung from a belt or wrapped around the user’s arm. Shape-memorizing material and multiple pressure sensors allow the phone to change its shape according to the mode.







Nokia 888 Concept Phone

Based on the design concept - "Form follows you”.

A personal mobile communication device which lets you be free and fun. It is light, simple and carefree. You can change its form according to your needs during the day.

This wonder also uses an original E-motions technology, that allows you to show your emotions electronically.

For more to read on this topic ,visit Concept Phones for you