Inside of Google's Search Personalization

Video presentation made by Peter Norvig who is Google's Director of Search Quality at SIMS 141 organized by Marti Hearst at Berkeley

Yahoo launches SiteExplorer

Nice way to find out who is linking where and what is being indexed by Yahoo

Here are the sites which are are linking to Engineering Village 2

Google and NASA signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation

"NASA and Google have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that outlines plans for cooperation on a variety of areas, including large-scale data management, massively distributed computing, bio-info-nano convergence, and encouragement of the entrepreneurial space industry. The MOU also highlights plans for Google to develop up to 1 million square feet within the NASA Research Park at Moffett Field."

In the press release Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO said:

"Google and NASA share a common desire-to bring a universe of information to people around the world. Imagine having a wide selection of images from the Apollo space mission at your fingertips whenever you want it. That's just one small example of how this collaboration could help broaden technology's role in making the world a better place."

via SpaceFlight Now

I am all for it if this is going to make the world a better place...

Tim O'Reilly Sides with Google

In an open-ad article (paid subscription required) in the NYTimes, publisher O'Reilly sides with Google against the copyright suit filed by the Authur Guild.

I'm sorry to see authors buy into the old-school protectionism of the Authors Guild, not realizing they're acting against their own self-interest. Their resistance can come only from a failure to understand the nature of the program. Google Library is intended to help readers discover copyrighted works, not to give copies away. It's a tremendous service to authors that will help them beat the dismal odds of publishing as usual

PubSub LinkRank 1000

There is no major STM publisher in the PubSub LinkRank Kind a sad picture for STM publishers. ScienceDaily is ranked 152nd.

An Intelligent new tool for research: Watson 2.0

Congratulations to Intellext team for Watson 2.0 integration in Microsoft Tool Bar

The contextual search tools bring relevant information for multiple sources (web, blogs, news, subsciption service etc).

It think this software should be valuable for any information professionasl and researchers once they integrate all their fee based services.

Faceted Searching and Tags

fac.etio.us

Siderean has done it again with a very interesting application using tags and facets. Via David Weinberger

A French beauty:netvibe

a new service from netvibe, this is really a beauty











via Marc Canter

Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science

Another comparison of these three sources by Kathleen Bauer and Nisa Bakkalbasi from Yale in their recent article published in D-Lib Magazine

In the article they are also questioning Google Scholar's content and validity as a true scholarly resource:

"However, it is important for all researchers to note that until Google Scholar gives a full account of what material it is indexing and how often that index is updated, it cannot be considered a true scholarly resource in the sense that Web of Science and Scopus are. An understanding of the material being covered is central to the validity of any search of scholarly material."

Google College Life

Special marketing page for College Life

via Syndication for Librarians

A new blog tracking product: TechMemorandum

TechMemorandum It does look very interesting, will try it asap. via scoble

Reed Elsevier Arms Trade

I might be missing some points in this whole argument against Reed Elsevier, but I don't see why some parties are making this defense industry trade show such a big deal. Guardian also has a story on this today.

"Campaigners are angry that countries whose human rights records have been criticised by British ministers, including China, have been invited. China is subject to a European Union arms embargo."

What's next? Should we stop publishing articles that are submitted from Chinese authors?

Here is an excerpt from Reed Elsevier official response to Lancet's article:

"It is vital that trade shows serving this sector operate in as visible and tightly regulated an environment as possible. Reed Elsevier, through its Reed Exhibitions business (which manages more than 400 trade shows each year serving many different sectors) is well placed to work in conjunction with the UK Ministry of Defence to do this, and to ensure that the show adheres to the highest standards of scrutiny and compliance with the law. DSEi, like all our business activities, complies with the principles of the United Nations Global Compact, to which Reed Elsevier is a signatory."

Let's not forget defense industries contribution to our civilian life either. Like PillCam™ Capsule Endoscopy that was an idea developped by a scientist who was working in the development of Popeye Missile, or similar by products that are brainchild of defense related research









Organizing a conference like this does not change a bit my opinion about how I feel about my company. This is a great company (ok sometimes I may not not agree with everything but overall it's a great place) with great products.

Agile Software Development a la Skype

While e-bay acquires skype, skype's manifesto explains one of their reasons to success. via Ross Mayfield

Lancet Criticised Reed Elsevier for organizing Defence Systems & Equipment International show

BBC being BBC puts its typical "biased" twist on the headline: Reed criticised for 'arms link'

Online Debate on Book Publishing

Adam Hodgkin's (the founder of xrefer) article is at Googledebate

WebJunction

Another good initiative by OCLC. Webjunction is " an online community of libraries and other agencies sharing knowledge and experience to provide the broadest public access to information technology."