The Hindu: On a mission to create an Indian answer to Google. “This is the story of 15-year-old A Suryachandra Pavan, a self-taught app developer hailing from a family of modest means, who claims to have developed five apps in a short span f five months and is now working to develop a platform similar to the Google Playstore which will feature all Indian-made apps. His ultimate dream is to create an Indian competitor to take on the world’s most powerful brand Google and in the process, get the ‘Make in India’ slogan louder.” China has Baidu, Russia has Yandex. Why shouldn’t India have a search engine specific to its country?
search engines
Bloomberg: Peering Inside Google’s $19 Billion Black Box
Bloomberg: Peering Inside Google’s $19 Billion Black Box. “There’s a $19 billion black box inside Google. That’s the yearly amount Google pays to companies that help generate its advertising sales, from the websites lined with Google-served ads to Apple and others that plant Google’s search box or apps in prominent spots. Investors are obsessed with this money, called traffic acquisition costs, and they’re particularly worried about the growing slice of those payments going to Apple and Google’s Android allies. “
TorrentFreak: Search Engines Will Open Systems to Prove Piracy & VPN Blocking
TorrentFreak: Search Engines Will Open Systems to Prove Piracy & VPN Blocking. “Leading Russian search engines have met with local telecoms watchdog Rozcomnadzor to work out how the services will stop pirate sites, mirrors, VPNs, and other anonymization tools from appearing in search results. Search engines will now receive lists of banned resources automatically and will mesh their IT systems with the government’s so the latter can ascertain compliance.”
The Register: Privacy-focused search engine DeepSearch slinks out of hiding
The Register: Privacy-focused search engine DeepSearch slinks out of hiding. “Developers are working on a privacy-focused search engine that goes beyond the likes of DuckDuckGo. DeepSearch from TSignal is an AI-based search engine that does not collect any user information, according to the team behind the project. The crawler-based engine aims to maintain user privacy while offering unbiased information discovery.”
Search Engine Land: Yandex upgrades search algorithm to better understand user searches
Search Engine Land: Yandex upgrades search algorithm to better understand user searches. “Yandex, Russia’s largest search engine, announced they have transitioned to an upgraded search platform named ‘Korolyov.’ Named after a Russian satellite town northeast of Moscow that has long served as the center of Russia’s space exploration, Korolyov adds two major upgrades above the Palekh system which was launched last November.”
Ars Technica: “Bing is bigger than you think,” Microsoft boasts, at 33% of US searches
Ars Technica: “Bing is bigger than you think,” Microsoft boasts, at 33% of US searches. ” Via OnMSFT, Microsoft tweeted yesterday that it’s ‘bigger than you think’ and provided some numbers that will probably be a surprise to many. The company claims that fully one-third of searches in the US are powered by Bing, either directly or through Yahoo or AOL (both of which provide results generated by Microsoft). Other strong markets include Taiwan, at 24 or 26 percent, and the UK, at either 23 or 25 percent (depending on which tweet you read).” Wow.
PC World: 4 reasons why I switched from Google to Bing
PC World: 4 reasons why I switched from Google to Bing. “Three years ago, I switched from Google search to Bing. There, I said it. No longer do I Google something; I Bing it. And I haven’t looked back since. Maybe you’re considering doing the same, either over ire about the recent diversity-memo controversy, or some other aspect of the search giant that has rubbed you the wrong way. Here are some points to consider.”
