Are you an avid vulnerability hunter who wants to earn an extra buck or two for your skills? If so, Google would like a word with you. The company has announced a new experimental reward program for those who find security bugs in Google’s websites, following a similar and successful program from earlier this year. The rewards depend on the severity of the bug(s), but range from $500 to $3,133.7 (wow, clever).
Google further honed its local search Thursday, introducing Place Search, a new program that organizes information around specific locations so users “can more easily make comparisons and decide where to go,” and should snip about two seconds off such searches.
Technolog – Google refines local search with Place Search tool.
Humans aren’t the only ones who can steer a conversation to their own benefit. This year’s winner of the Loebner prize for the most convincing chatbot used such a trick to fool a human judge, earning its creator a $3,000 prize.
The Loebner prize is awarded for a version of the Turing Test, a method, first proposed by the British mathematician Alan Turing, of determining whether or not a computer program acts as if it is “thinking”. The essence of the test is that a human interacts with both a computer program and another human, and is then asked to say which is which.
via Prizewinning chatbot steers the conversation – tech – 26 October 2010 – New Scientist.
So much for the war on Googler entitlement. Amid heated competition for engineers, Google is trying a remarkable new perk: free use of “runners” to clean apartments, take out trash, cook dinner, run errands—whatever is needed.
The internet is growing fast, but Google is growing even faster. According to online security company Arbor Networks, Google now represents an average 6.4 percent of all internet traffic.
via Google accounts for 6.4 percent of internet traffic – CNN.com.
When Google Instant launched this past September, we were told that it would launch for mobile phones sometime this fall, and it seems that the Google Instant feature may be hitting select Android phones right now.
If you’re holding onto a Droid Incredible, Motorola Droid, or Droid X, you may treated to a little surprise if you go to Google.com, as some users with these devices are reporting that Instant is up and running just fine. We’re not sure how this is necessarily rolling out to users, but it’s not something that needs a software update, it’s more just a matter of the folks in Mountain View, CA. giving the green light to your handset. Since the three reported handsets that are indeed seeing Instant on their phones are all Verizon devices, it could be up to the carriers to make it available. We’ll just have to wait and see.
via Google Instant search hitting select Android phones now.
In a matter of months, it will be possible to peruse the Dead Sea Scrolls from the comfort of your computer chair. Because now that Google’s digitized one priceless national treasure, this is the next logical step.
The keepers of the scrolls, the Israel Antiquities Authority, announced Tuesday that as part of their 20th anniversary, they are launching this project to digitize all of the 30,000 fragments that make up the earliest known copy of the Hebrew Bible. Taking a page out of the PopSci handbook, the IAA is entrusting Google with the task of preserving their sacred, prophetic treasures. This is the first time since the 1950s that the entire collection will be photographed.
via Apocrypha In Your Browser: Google Is Putting The Dead Sea Scrolls Online | Popular Science.
Google describes its new Google TV as a “platform that combines your current TV programming and the open Web into a single, seamless entertainment experience.” But broadcasters don’t necessarily want to see that delicious combination of peanut butter and chocolate Web and TV—and they’ve now taken to blocking Google TV access.
If you’re reading this, then you’ve probably watched your share of tech demos in your life, possibly on this very blog. Like broccoli, tech demos are good for you. But kids don’t line up for broccoli—just like the majority of people don’t line up for tech demos.
So how do we get more free, amazing tech goodness to more people? Well, as you’ll see, there’s nothing we won’t try… (Read more…).
