njko - Slashdot User

Submission + - Interview with Google on Next-Generation Search

Submitted by

ReadWriteWeb

on Tuesday March 13, 2007 @04:48PM

ReadWriteWeb writes: "Richard MacManus interviews Google's Matt Cutts on the topic of Next-Generation Search. Matt discusses what Google is working on in regards to next-gen search — including personalized search and semantic technologies. He says some search engines that claim to be semantic won't do a good job in delivering the right results, whereas Google can do a very good job due to the sheer amount of data it has. He says that Google has "a pragmatic approach and we don't necessarily place all our bets on one particular way of doing things. We are exploring a lot of different things all at once."

Also discussed in the interview is SearchMash (Google's "fun playground" for experimenting with new features), Google Base and using structured data, vertical search, fighting web spam, and how Google is going about indexing video."

Submission + - Dogs Used to Tackle Movie, Music Piracy

Submitted by

WMD_88

on Tuesday March 13, 2007 @04:43PM

WMD_88 writes: "The Associated Press is reporting that the MPAA has trained dogs to sniff out pirated optical discs, and two of them are being used at an international airport in Malaysia. From the article: "On Tuesday, the dogs found discs hidden among more than 50 boxes scattered around the cargo complex, eventually uncovering a pirated box set of the long-running TV sitcom 'Friends,' among others, in less than 10 minutes. After Lucky and Flo's stint, Malaysia will evaluate whether to employ its own dogs. Shafie said the demonstration showed the dogs were cost- effective and faster at detecting the contraband than enforcement officers.""

Submission + - Egyptian blogger sentenced to 4 years in prison

Submitted by on Friday February 23, 2007 @01:29PM

An anonymous reader writes: 22-year old Egyptian blogger and former law student Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman (aka Kareem Amer) was sentenced by an Egyptian court on Thursday to 4 years in prison, three years for "disparaging religion" and a fourth one added for "defaming the president." Amer, whose blog is still online, has become a cause celebre for human rights activists in Egypt and around the Arab world, who have set up a "Free Kareem!" campaign calling for his release online. Amer's case is interesting in that almost everything, from the crime itself to those rallying to Amer's aid, has been conducted in large part over the Internet. At one point, the legal defense team even tried to force the court to bring in a computer expert who could testify that the blog was hosted outside of Egypt and therefore out of the court's jurisdiction. While for an increasing number of individuals like Amer, blogging has become another form of regulated expression, it is also "an essential communication strategy for many frustrated Arabs who use blogging as a tool to promote democratization," as this editorial by one of the leaders of the "Free Kareem!" campaign claims.

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