Microsoft, Google expand search-engine tools

Say you're buying a dog. You know the breed you want; you can picture it in your head. But what was the name? A bull terrier? A pit bull? A bull mastiff?

Or what if you're in the market for a new camera? You saw a friend with a credit-card-thin model at a party last weekend. But was that a Canon? A Nikon? A brand you've never heard of?

If you're like many people, you'd turn to the Internet for answers. But you type in "dog breeds" or "digital cameras" into Google and punch enter, and a big list of blue links comes up. You don't see the dog you want. You don't find the camera, either -- at least not quickly.

Such quandaries are the driving force behind Bing's new "visual search" function, which lets Web users troll through image catalogues instead of Web pages when they know what something looks like but can't put their finger on the name.

The examples are also evidence that the search engine market, once dominated by simple rectangular search bars and the lists of Web pages that follow, is diversifying. People who once were happy with a one-search-fits-all model are finding exceptions, and a number of niche search products are trying to respond to these increasingly diverse needs.

Also this week, Google introduced a test product called Fast Flip, which takes a retro look at Web design by making online news look like something magazine readers will find familiar.

The company has other news products -- namely Google Reader and Google News -- but is looking for ways to make news content more visual and to share some of the revenue.

The new products come as Microsoft's Bing continues to elbow for more room in an online search market that Google has dominated for years. In June, 65 percent of all Internet searchers were done through Google sites, according to comScore. Microsoft caught only 8.4 percent of searchers in the same period.

Fast Flip, an experimental feature of Google Labs, is a Web application that allows users to scan news articles from 39 print and online publishers, including The New York Times, Newsweek, TechCrunch and Us magazine.

Users can "flip" through a horizontal stream of screen grabs of articles as they appear on the partners' Web sites, with layout, design and images intact. You can click once on a story to enlarge the page; a second click takes you to the partner's site. Users also can browse popular topics (the economy, Taylor Swift) or search for others of their choosing.

Google says the idea behind the new service is to make online news-browsing faster and replicate the reading experience of flipping through a magazine or newspaper.

Unlike Google News, which emphasizes breaking news articles from the past 24 hours, Fast Flip "is more for stories with a longer shelf life," Google spokesman Chris Gaither said.

"We think there's a lot of room for innovation in how people consume news articles on the Web," Gaither said. "The easier it is for people to browse articles quickly, the more they'll read."

Loren Baker, editor of Search Engine Journal, says that increases in bandwidth make "visual search" functions more successful today than in previous years, when images would load more slowly.

Baker believes that Google Fast Flip could make it easier for people to scan news articles on their netbooks, tablets or even smartphones.

"I don't have to sift through my bookmarks. I don't even have to leave Google," he said. "It's almost like a virtual newsstand on my handheld."

But not everyone is excited about Google's new product.

"If this is the future of news, I think news is kind of screwed," said Frederic Lardinois, a writer at ReadWriteWeb, a technology blog. Lardinois said the interface is backward-thinking and is hard to use.

Fast Flip is in a test phase and will incorporate feedback from users, Gaither said. Google also is seeking to expand the roster of Fast Flip partners, he said.
Some tech observers say Bing's hyper-visual search function gives it a new leg up on Google in terms of functionality.

Nova Spivack, a search expert and founder of Twine, said the most important thing about Bing's visual search is that users can sort the images into categories.
By creating different kinds of searches and making them sortable, Bing is catering to high-end Internet users -- which, soon, will be everyone, he said.

"I think Bing has realized that everybody is becoming a search geek," he said.
On the dog-breed search example, users can filter the images to include only terriers, or hypoallergenic dogs or toy dogs, or dogs that need a medium level of exercise, so they don't have to scroll through hundreds of photos to find the dog they're searching for.

Mary Jo Foley, editor of the All About Microsoft blog at ZDNet, said she personally finds Bing's visual search useless because she's not a visually minded person. But she said it's an example of search engines diversifying, and that's a good thing for everyone.

"I think the idea for Microsoft and Google and Yahoo is to present things in new ways and say, 'What if you could do this? Would you want to do it this way?' "
She added: "Not all people search in the same way, and not all people want to get their results in the same way."

There are about 50 galleries of images in the new Bing visual search bin, but more will be added, and eventually the idea will be integrated into the main search site, said Stefan Weitz, director of Bing. Right now, users have to go to a separate page to find the visual searches.

David Coursey, a blogger at PCWorld.com, said the search works like a "visual dictionary."

"I think Bing is onto something," he said. "And if they can figure out how to extend Bing's visual search, it could be very helpful for people who know what something looks like but don't know what to call it."

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/16/visual.web.bing.google/index.html

A cordless future for electricity?

Electronics such as phones and laptops may start shedding their power cords within a year.

That's the prediction of Eric Giler, CEO of WiTricity, a company that's able to power light bulbs using wireless electricity that travels several feet from a power socket.

WiTricity's version of wireless electricity -- which converts power into a magnetic field and sends it sailing through the air at a particular frequency -- still needs to be refined a bit, he said, but should be commercially available soon.

Giler, whose company is a spinoff of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology research group, says wireless electricity has the potential to cut the need for power cords and throw-away batteries.

"Five years from now, this will seem completely normal," he said.

"The biggest effect of wireless power is attacking that huge energy wasting that goes on where people buy disposable batteries," he said. Watch Giler demonstrate the idea

It also will make electric cars more attractive to consumers, he said, because they will be able to power up their vehicles simply by driving into a garage that's fitted with a wireless power mat.

Electric cars are "absolutely gorgeous," he added, "but does anyone really want to plug them in?"

Ideas about wireless electricity have been floating around the world of technology for more than a century. Nikola Tesla started toying with the ability to send electricity through the air in the 1890s. Since then, though, making wireless electricity technology safe and cheap enough to put on the market has been an arduous task for researchers.

Engineers have developed several ways to convert electricity into something that's safe to send through the air without a wire. Some of their technologies are available on commercial scales, but they have some limits.

Low-level power

One set of researchers is able to send power over long distances but in very small amounts.

For example, in 2003, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, company called Powercast used radio waves to light a low-power LED bulb that was 1.5 miles from its power source, said Harry Ostaffe, spokesman for the company.

Now, Powercast's technology is used in office buildings to power temperature sensors that regulate air conditioning systems and in other low-power applications. The company also has sold wireless artificial Christmas trees strung with LED lights for about $400, Ostaffe said.

But radio waves can't transfer the larger amounts of electricity needed to power laptops or mobile phones, he said.

Power pads

Another type of wireless electricity technology can send large amounts of power over very small distances, often not more than a few centimeters.

Such technology is available today, but only in minimal ways. Think, for instance, about electric toothbrushes that sit on charging cradles but don't actually plug in.

One problem with the high-power, small-distance idea is that each device requires its own charging pad, and consumers hate that, said Menno Treffers, chairman of the steering group at the Wireless Power Consortium. The group formed in late 2008 to promote standardization of the technology.

Treffers said consumers soon should be able to buy one power pad that would charge all of their electronic devices. It might look like a placemat, and cell phones, remote controls and appliances would charge automatically when they're placed on the pad.

"The key reason to do it is convenience, because if you want to get rid of all the different power supplies, there are other ways that are cheaper," he said.

The pads, which would rely on electrical sockets as their initial sources of power, also would be more energy efficient than plugging all of the devices into power sockets directly, he said. The pads would shut off automatically when a device has finished charging and are about 70 percent to 90 percent as efficient as transferring power through a wire, he said.

Wire-free chargers for a single item are relatively cheap: about $10 to build, he said. But it's unclear how much pads that could power a living room worth of equipment would cost, he said.

'Magnetically coupled resonance'

Ultimately, Giler's group from MIT wants to combine the best of both worlds: large amounts of power sent over long distances.

Their technology is called "magnetically coupled resonance," and it basically sends a magnetic field through the air at a specific frequency that an an enabled phone or TV can pick up and turn back into electricity. It works kind of like sound. Think about how an opera singer can break a wine glass if he sings at just the right frequency.

Adding the technology to cell phones, mp3 players and other devices should not increase their cost much, he said.

Despite Giler's optimism, there are some doubts about magnetically coupled resonance.

Treffers said there may be health risks associated with the magnetic fields created in the MIT process. Giler said the technology would produce magnetic fields that are "about the same density as the earth's magnetic field."

He said wireless electricity has many environmental benefits. Companies make about 40 billion disposable batteries each year, he said, and wireless electricity could do away with that.

The biggest barrier to the technology's adoption, he said, is that people just aren't familiar with the idea.

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MIT engineers create new school of robotic fish

Schools of robotic fish could one day map the ocean floor, detect pollution or inspect and survey submerged boats or oil and gas pipelines, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say.

MIT engineers are showing off the latest generation of so-called robofish 15 years after they built the first one. The latest incarnation is sleeker, more streamlined and capable of mimicking the movements of a real fish.

And it's capable of exploring underwater terrain submersibles can't, said Pablo Valdivia Alvarado, a mechanical engineer at the school.

"Some of our sponsors were thinking of using them for inspection and surveillance," Alvarado said. "Since these prototypes are very cheap, the idea was to build hundreds -- 200, 500 -- and then just release them in a bay or at a port, and they would be roaming around taking measurements."

MIT researchers built their first robotic fish, "Robotuna," in 1994. But Robotuna has gone the way of the dinosaur. Alvarado said the new generation -- modeled after bass and trout -- cost only a few hundred dollars and have only 10 parts instead of the thousands used in Robotuna.

At five to 18 inches, the new fish is much smaller than Robotuna and built from a single, soft polymer. And unlike Robotuna, the fish is able to be released in the oceans.

"Most of the brains, the electronics, are embedded inside," said Alvarado, who designed the robofish with fellow MIT engineer Kamal Youcef-Toumi. "We have built prototypes with the battery inside, but for my experiments, for simplicity. We have a lot of prototypes that are simply tethered. We have a cable that runs out from the body and connects to a power supply."

The new generation has withstood harsh conditions in the lab, including two years of testing inside tanks filled with tap water, which is corrosive to standard robots, according to Alvarado, who says the Robotuna inspired him to take the technology to the next level.

The oil exploration company Schlumberger helped fund the research, but Alvarado says the U.S. Navy has also expressed interest in the robofish.

MIT's mechanical engineers are now turning their attention to new challenges: A robotic manta ray and a terrestrial robot in the form of a salamander.

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