BNN Bloomberg: Google Quietly Tweaks Image Search for Racially Diverse Results. “Google updated its algorithms in an effort to promote more racially diverse results in image searches — the tech giant’s latest attempt to excise biases from the world’s most popular search engine.”
Penn State News: Search engine could help researchers scour internet for privacy documents. “In a study, the researchers said that the search engine, which they dubbed PrivaSeer, uses a type of AI called natural language processing — NLP — to identify online privacy documents, such as privacy policies, terms of service agreements, cookie policies, privacy bills and laws, regulatory guidelines and other related texts on the web.”
Search Engine Land: Yelp announces new features for services businesses, including custom search filters, a new review flow and themed ads. “On Tuesday, Yelp announced new features for services businesses and the users that may be looking for them, including custom search filters, a new review flow, themed ads and Project Cost Guides.”
FamilySearch: Find Your Ancestors Quickly Using FamilySearch’s New Discovery Search Experience. “If you find yourself struggling to know how to find your ancestors, FamilySearch has a new search experience that can help you find your ancestors in a quick and easy way without having to sign in. The FamilySearch Discovery Search experience provides a way to quickly search select databases on FamilySearch—the tree, records, memories, and last name information—all at the same time. This is a great way to get started with your family history and connect with your ancestors quickly!”
Google Blog: Giving you more sustainable choices with Google. “Companies aren’t the only ones asking what more we can do to help the planet — increasingly people are asking themselves those questions, too. So today we’re sharing several new ways people can use Google’s products to make sustainable choices. Among them, we’re introducing new features to book flights or purchase appliances that have lower carbon footprints, a Nest program to support clean energy from home, and eco-friendly routing on Google Maps — which is rolling out today. And when people come to Google Search with questions about climate change, we’ll show authoritative information from sources like the United Nations, in addition to the existing news sources that we currently raise up in the carousel.” I was all excited until I read the last half of the last sentence.
Reuters: Google adds visual search features in shopping, video push. “Google users can soon combine images and text in search queries, a feature unveiled on Wednesday that could help the Alphabet Inc unit expand its role in e-commerce and dominance in online video. The new feature will arrive within months through its Google Lens search tool, the company said in its livestreamed Search On conference. Google said in May that advances in artificial intelligence software would make this possible.”
Make Tech Easier: How to Search Facebook for People, Posts, Businesses, and More. “While it’s purposed to be a regular social network, Facebook is one of the go-to places to find anything. Be it a person, business, or items for sales, you can find everything on Facebook. But how do you narrow down the search results to find something quickly? Let’s examine how to use Facebook’s advanced search filters on mobile and PC.”
Northumbria University: Design meets artificial intelligence to create new visual search engine. “Novel methods of searching the nation’s gallery, library and museum collections could soon be revolutionised by a visual search platform designed in collaboration with Northumbria University. As the sector worldwide moves towards presenting collections online, the Deep Discoveries project was launched to explore ways of creating a computer vision search platform that can identify and match images across digitised collections on a national scale.” A beta version of the search is available.
My Ancestors and Me: Use Google Books to Search Google News Archives. “After changes at Google News Archive a number of years ago it became almost impossible to perform an OCR search of a particular newspaper. I resorted to waiting till I knew a date for a birth, death, marriage, or other event, then looked at the newspaper for that date and a few days after, hoping to see more information, knowing, of course, there was always a chance I would miss something. But there’s another way to search Google’s newspaper collection, learned from Lisa Louise Cook’s post, 10 Surprising Things You Can Find at Google Books.” This is amazing! The interface is 500% better than Google News.
Tech Xplore: Computer scientists create new search systems to limit COVID-19 misinformation. “Researchers have created a new system that increases the correctness and reliability of health-related searches by 80 percent to help people make better decisions about topics like COVID.”
Wolfram Blog: A New Way to Ask Wolfram|Alpha Questions with Math Input. “The input field now formats as you type, which is very helpful, especially for people using Wolfram|Alpha in the classroom, or while studying or doing homework. Most mathematics, especially in the US K–12 standard curriculum, is taught by using handwritten methods, and seeing this formatting as you type is extremely useful.”
Engadget: Instagram is testing ‘interest search’ to make results more intuitive. “Instagram is working on making its search function more intuitive. The app is experimenting with changes that allow users to search for content based on topics rather than account names or hashtags.”
CNET: YouTube amps up its search with more visual, foreign-language results. “YouTube is improving its search capabilities, the video streaming service said Tuesday, including making search results more visual and surfacing videos in more languages.”
MIT News: Searching for multiplicity, in computer science and daily life . “PhD student Rodrigo Ochigame designs alternative search engines and seeks to disrupt cultural assumptions in their teaching and research.” Mx. Ochigame’s Search Atlas engine is currently in private beta, but I have signed up and hope to get a chance to play with it.
