Hasta La Gadget!

Google has, from time to time, changed their algorithms in an attempt to bring us what they claim to be better results in the end. Well, the Panda update in the past did not sit too well with some website owners, and this time around, there is the new “Hummingbird” update which was announced by Google at a Menlo Park garage which Google was first incubated in its early years. Google has decided to remain mum on the kind of technology that ran the algorithm, but it did mention that Hummingbird “makes results more useful and relevant, especially when you ask Google long, complex questions.”

Google claims that humans have begun to use ever more sophisticated, conversational queries, while making the move away from short directed terms. After all, folks these days tend to be more likely to write complex and perhaps some might even say long winded stories, and these are very difficult to parse for the search engine. Hence, the shift to a more conversational tone is required to be part of the search engine’s repertoire. According to a Google spokesperson, “Hummingbird pays more attention to each word in the query, ensuring the whole query is taken into account – so if a resulting page is a bit less strong in general, but it’s the most relevant to your search terms, that’s the result you’ll get. And if there are plenty of relevant matches to your search terms, Hummingbird does a better job picking the strongest page for you.”

I am awaiting the backlash from some websites that have been configured SEO-wise to make the most out of Panda. Will we see sudden drops in PageRank for some?

Google Hummingbird Algorithm Update Announced original content from Ubergizmo.

Global warming is almost certainly the fault of human beings, a new report by the United Nations climate panel states. It offers 95 percent certainty of that assertion, based on “some 2,500 pages of text and…millions of observations and over 2 million gigabytes of numerical data from climate model simulations,” and it cites over 9,200 scientific papers (75 percent of which are from the last three years). The report also suggests “substantial and sustained” efforts to reduce greenhouse gas production; greenhouse gases (everything from water vapor to nitrous oxide) are the primary cause of the greenhouse effect, which destroys the Earth’s protective ozone layer.

Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are the main culprits causing the Earth’s ozone to deteriorate. CO2 levels have risen by 40 percent “since pre-industrial times,” much of which was absorbed by the Earth’s oceans (about 30 percent), resulting in rising acidity levels. Moreover, due to that absorption, the oceans — specifically the upper ocean (0 to 700 meters) — have been warming since the 1870s.

As one might expect, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the UN’s climate change panel) suggests a greener lifestyle worldwide to help roll back the compound effects of global warming. A Tesla for each of us, perhaps? But even if we all go super green and massively cut back on greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, it sounds like humanity won’t see the positive for quite some time. “As a result of our past, present and expected future emissions of CO2, we are committed to climate change, and effects will persist for many centuries even if emissions of CO2 stop,” co-chair Thomas Stocker says.

Filed under: Misc, Science, Alt

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Source: IPCC (1), IPCC (2), IPCC (3)

DISH and Control4 have teamed up to integrate the Hopper HD DRV into the Control4 home automation system, spreading control of the digital video recorder across any in-wall touchscreen, remote, tablet, or smartphone used in the home. Building on DISH’s API, which the company launched back in July, the integration means that those living in […]

The Battlefield 4 beta will be launching on October 1 on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, although if you’re a PC gamer who is counting down the days, hours and minutes until the beta is available for you to play, you might want to make sure you’re running a 64-bit system. (more…)

Battlefield 4 PC Beta Will Only Support 64-Bit Machines original content from Ubergizmo.

We already knew Mars was blanketed in ancient riverbeds, which points to the existence of water in the distant past. What we didn’t know, however, is that H2O exists on Mars in the here and now — albeit embedded in Martian soil. A paper recently published in the journal Science revealed that as much as two percent of dirt from the Red Planet contains the precious liquid. The Curiosity rover gathered samples of the sand from the “Rocknest” area near the Gale Crater back in August of 2012 and delivered it to the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument inside its belly. After heating the sample to around 835 Celsius, SAM was able to detect a surprising amount of carbonate materials, which are formed in the presence of water.

Laurie Leshin, dean of science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the study’s lead author said the findings are conclusive: “If you took about a cubic foot of the dirt and heated it up, you’d get a couple of pints of water out of that — a couple of water bottles’ worth that you would take to the gym.” Another SAM discovery is a mineral called perchlorate that could interfere with thyroid functions if ingested. Still, if we could work around that, the findings could prove tremendously useful for future Mars explorers. “When we send people,” Leshin said in the paper, “they could scoop up the soil anywhere on the surface, heat it just a bit, and obtain water.” We’re likely years away from having fishing expeditions in Mars, of course, but this does soften the blow about the possible lack of life.

Filed under: Science, Alt

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Via: Science Daily

Source: Science