Monthly Archives: July 2008

Cuil Search Engine Takes on Google

cuilsearchengine Cuil Search Engine Takes on Google

Cuil, pronounced cool, was cooked up by some former Google engineers:

Cuil had kept a low profile while Patterson, her husband, Tom Costello, and two other former Google engineers – Russell Power and Louis Monier – searched for better ways to search.

Now, it’s boasting time.

For starters, Cuil’s search index spans 120 billion Web pages.

Patterson believes that’s at least three times the size of Google’s index, although there is no way to know for certain. Google stopped publicly quantifying its index’s breadth nearly three years ago when the catalog spanned 8.2 billion Web pages.

Cuil won’t divulge the formula it has developed to cover a wider swath of the Web with far fewer computers than Google. And Google isn’t ceding the point: Spokeswoman Katie Watson said her company still believes its index is the largest.

Jermaine Gonzales has additional screenshots and you can, of course, give it a try yourself.

I’m still running a few test queries. I think they have some interesting interface ideas but, like others, I fail to see Google-beating relevancy. Still, it’s worth keeping an eye on.

ABC News: Olympics and Other Events Force Heightened Terrorism Alert

Of course, the counterterrorism forces of nearly every government on the planet are going to be on some form of heightened alert during the Olympics.

Government officials have been quietly stepping up counterterror efforts out of a growing concern that al Qaeda or similar organizations might try to capitalize on the spate of extremely high-profile events in the coming months, sources tell ABC News.

Security experts point to next month’s Olympics as evidence that high profile events attract threats of terrorism, like the one issued this past weekend from a Chinese Muslim minority group that warned of its intent to attack the games.

Anti-terror officials in the U.S. cite this summer and fall’s line up of two major political parties’ conventions, November’s general election and months of transition into a new presidential administration as cause for heightened awareness and action.

While we tend to associate terrorism alerts with Islamic terrorism (for good reason) there’s a significant threat posed by homegrown wackos. Securing the conventions is going to be a huge and difficult job.

Authorities Look at Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, Indian Mujahedeen, and an American in Ahmedabad Bombings

It sounds like the Indian security apparatus is chasing down leads well enough:

Authorities raided an apartment rented by an American in Mumbai, 338 miles (545 km) away after tracing an e-mail that claimed responsibility for the blasts, CNN’s sister network CNN-IBN reported Sunday.

The apartment resident claimed that his Internet account had been hacked a few days ago, the television station said.

Authorities are also investigating another email sent to Muslim actors who are part of the Mumbai-based Indian film industry. The email reportedly asked them to stop working, the television station said.

No arrests have been made, although police reportedly rounded up 30 individuals in connection with the blasts, CNN-IBN added.

The network was among several media outlets to receive an e-mail, purportedly from the Muslim militant group Indian Mujahedeen, warning about an attack. The message was also sent to the country’s Intelligence Bureau. Video Watch how the media was tipped off »

But afterward, the Islamic militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJi) — or the Movement of the Islamic Holy War — claimed responsibility for the bombings, CNN-IBN said.

Analysts say that cross-pollination between terror groups can make it difficult to distinguish between them.

Well, they all seem to have at least one thing in common don’t they? I’m looking forward to more details on the unnamed American with the fishy internet story.

Chaos in Ahmedabad India: 17 Terrorist Bombs in 70 Minutes – Indian Mujahedeen Suspected

Dozens are dead and wounded:

All metropolitan areas in India have been put on high alert.

Several media outlets and the country’s Intelligence Bureau received an e-mail, purportedly from the Muslim militant group Indian Mujahedeen, warning about a possible attack. The group has claimed responsibility for two similar attacks in the past nine months in northern India.

Most of the explosions were in eastern Ahmedabad and within a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) radius, according to CNN’s sister network CNN-IBN.

One explosion was at a bus stop, others at a railway station and on a bus. Another bomb went off under a car at a hospital where injured people were being taken, the network said.

Video footage from the scene of one explosion showed charred and twisted bicycles and motorcycles lying on the street as a crowd milled around. At least one of the bombs was on a bicycle, authorities said.

The blasts began about 6:30 p.m. and lasted until about 7:40 p.m., according to CNN-IBN.

The synchronized low-intensity attacks are really troubling. They may not have the impact of a “terrorist spectacular” but they offer other advantages to terrorists. They’re cheap, they do not require many sophisticated or highly trained participants, they pose a relatively low risk of capture, and they can be carried out with easy to acquire materials. Using these tactics a competent team of terrorists could terrorize a city for years. Frankly, I’m surprised that we haven’t seen more if this in the continental US.

The Last Lecture: Randy Pausch Dead at 47

Sad news:

Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist whose “last lecture” about facing terminal cancer became an Internet sensation and a best-selling book, has died. He was 47.

Pausch died early Friday at his home in Virginia, university spokeswoman Anne Watzman said. Pausch and his family moved there last fall to be closer to his wife’s relatives.

Pausch was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer in September 2006. His popular last lecture at Carnegie Mellon in September 2007 garnered international attention and was viewed by millions on the Internet.

In it, Pausch celebrated living the life he had always dreamed of instead of concentrating on impending death.

“The lecture was for my kids, but if others are finding value in it, that is wonderful,” Pausch wrote on his Web site. “But rest assured; I’m hardly unique.”

Not unique – but rare.

“Under the ruse of giving an academic lecture, I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children.” – Randy Pausch

Nancy Gibbs on Randy:

Wise men have said they’re not scared of death, but they’re a little scared of dying. Death is just a mystery: but dying is the journey we don’t want to take, and he used it to lead the living to a new place. It was as though he already knew more than he should, had dipped a ways into eternity and brought some pieces back for the rest of us to use in whatever ways and for whatever time we can.