Adaptive Path have taken things pretty far with their new initiative for designing the new browsing experience for the users of tomorrow. Aurora is indeed a magnicent site on the web horizon. The whole thing is still just a concept, being developed in association with Mozilla Labs, but the video they released, the first in a series dealing with Aurora, is quite an interesting vision of the future. The movie “Johnny Mnemonic” comes to mind, when Keanu Reeves searches for the sent fax from Japan, on a VR terminal in a computer shop in New York (okay, I like SciFi, what can I do).

Basically, Aurora allows for a browsing experience where information is organized according to time and usage. The less you use something or the older it is, the farther “downwards” it lives on the Z axis (perpendicular to screen). The words “out of sight, out of mind” truly have a literal meaning here. The interface looks very interesting, and I especially like the little touch device in the end, which helps you take the information you need or like with you.

Anyway, here’s the video:

Key components of Aurora project (from official site):

- Natural interaction: Spatial, visual, and physical engagement with the Web
- Continuity: Seamless, consistent Web and browser experience across devices
- Multi-user applications: The Web as a space for collaboration, sharing, and remixing
- Context awareness: Products that know where you are and what you’re doing, both physically and virtually

Who knows what it will eventually be like, when the time comes to introduce it as a product, but so far it’s looking very interesting.

[Via: TechCrunch]

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Cuil has been live (or down apparently) for days now. While I immediately formed an opinion about the interface and result presentation, I wanted to keep using it for my own day-to-day searches in order to get a more complete picture about its search value.

Basically, I expected a lot more from all the information I read about it prior to launch. The results are presented in a grid, which would be ok (easier to scan results) except that the grid is actually a set of columns which resemble a newspaper page much more than an organized set of information. Since grid blocks are not the same size, quick scanning is more difficult, as you have to scroll up and down to see the titles and descriptions. Furthermore, since the results are organized in two dimensions, the usual linear approach of ranking results is absent, so I expect users to have a little trouble determining which result is deemed more relevant compared to others, although this is not necessarily bad.

That aside, they kept the right margin space for advertising options, which aren’t there and probably won’t be for a while. This I think was a bit too quick. Why not offer more results on the page, and introduce paid results later? Since the results are two-dimensional, there is no clear way to distinguish a result that ranks better, and is therefore a desired position over other results. Google (and the rest) give linear results based on ranking priority, so the vertical component is much more important for ranking. Maybe a bit too soon to beyond this, since Cuil has only just started and is probably going to experiment a lot (hence the 2/3 column kayout option in bottom left of the screen).

The “Explore by Category” that appear for certain queries are neat, and actually do return interesting links towards content/results that may help me drill down further on a topic. But that’s pretty much in vain, since many of the queries I performed were answered with “no results found”, which wouldn’t be very strange, if it wasn’t for the fact that they boast billions of pages in the index (120+ billion!). Long tail search doesn’t seem to work, and basically if you type in more than 2-3 words, you’ll get scarce results if at all, but I am seeing improvements regarding this over time. Again, something that will probably change over time, simply too early for a more firm opinion. Sometimes, Cuil reports incorrect number of results compared to what you’re shown - for example “pamp for uiq symbian” returned 3 results, but showed only 2. Another bug?

Some of the queries returned results in multiple languages - for example French and English - all on the same page, side by side. I speak a few languages but if you are researching something, one language is really enough. It would be better if the application offered a choice to see results in other languages, if for example I didn’t find anything useful in English. This, however, didn’t happen too often, so I guess this was either a bug, or an experiment.

Notably, there is a clear absence of rich media results, or at least I didn’t get any, but I’m sure this will also change in the future.

Then there are numerous reports about the service being down due to overload. I haven’t experienced their down time intervals, but have frequently come upon the “no results found” scenario already mentioned. This is probably a start-up fluke, so I don’t expect this to happen too often.

Cuil could be an interesting new search option, especially since the people behind it certainly have the necessary experience and knowledge. I expect it to develop over the next months, and the real picture about its performance compared to ther search engines will be more complete then.

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I have just read the BrowseRank document released by Microsoft regarding their work on a new alternative to PageRank and TrustRank.

Basically, the whole ranking algorithm comes down to giving more value to visitor behavior, as opposed to simply counting and valuating the number of links pointing towards a web page. Visitor clicks and time spent on a web page are key factors in determining its ranking potential.

The document explains the mathematical theories behind BrowseRank, and although this is more useful for search engineers, I got a pretty good picture of where they are going with this. The point is this is just the beginning, and there is a lot more work that’s going to happen before BrowseRank gains real validity.

Since it relies on recording user behavior, there are small obstacles in front of BrowseRank.

First of all there is the privacy issue (users have to opt-in for data to be gathered), and although their document states they used data from millions of visitors who opted in for the purpose of research, the question remains whether BrowseRank can actually work in the long term if it has to rely on users opting in to be tracked all the time. Not that we are not tracked already without permission by numerous web sites already, but that’s another story. I suppose social networking data can also be used to this effect (social bookmarking perhaps), but the other dimension is still critical - how will they manage to record time spent on pages in an easy and unobtrusive way?

What the document also mentions is that BrowseRank is a more valid measure of a page’s importance since it takes into account clicks and time spent on a page, and is thus more immune to manipulation techniques already present with PageRank. It is believed that a person will not click to a page and spend time there unless there is good content and their need for information has been answered. I think there is room for manipulation here as well, since you can theoretically engage an army of users to use a search engine, click on a specified result and go spend some time there, and gather “points” for a particular page to “help” it rank better for related search queries. Naturally, this is a very naive scenario, but quite plausible.

Nevertheless, BrowseRank is an interesting evolution of search, and is quite welcome in my opinion. Is it going to give Microsoft (Live Search) the edge to ride the same waves with Google and Yahoo? Well, I am just not sure. I think it’s going to take a lot more than that.

A really independent and safe way to rank content on the internet has yet to be found. Basically, if it involves people and their behavior, it’s going to be open to manipulation. Maybe we’ll get there some day, but not just yet… Anyway, my two cents.

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So, Live Search has rolled out a new look for its home page. Well, it’s different, even interesting, but hopefully not the only thing they are going to change in their quest to improve their presence in the search arena.

In addition to this, Microsoft have published a document explaining their approach to ranking pages with a new rank criterion called BrowseRank (as opposed to Google’s PageRank, which they say is inferior to BrowseRank). Basically, BrowseRank is all about searcher online behavior (clicks and time spent on page) as a more accurate measure of a page’s importance, rather than simply relying on number of incoming links and on-page ranking factors. The BrowseRank document is available here, so check it out.

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Another great example of taking javascript to its limits. It’s a game called Spacius! A Space Adventure (a port of the original game from ages ago), which has been made using only Javascript, except for the sound effects for which the author used Flash. Best of all the game works in all major browsers.

The whole game has been made using DIVs to house animated objects, which deserves a big WOW! Gameplay is very good, no hang-ups and glitches.

Play it here in smaller resolution, or here in 800×600.

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I’ve been sitting on this for a while, because I didn’t have time, but it’s quite current as the product has not yet been launched.

It’s a new kind of gaming platform that will allow players to participate in F1 racing side-by-side with the real drivers, while the race is happening at the circuit. Basically, through a mix of GPS, web technologies and gaming, the game will allow enthusiasts to dive into the exciting world of Formula 1 racing. Players will be able to race against real professionals during the actual race.

Game play goes even further allowing for interaction (virtual) with participants - if you crash your car into a professional driver’s car in a live race, AI especially developed for this purpose, shows a simulated crash, but after only a few seconds the real-time data from the actual driver is updated so you can continue the race.

Naturally, game players are able to compete with each other, as well as against professional drivers in the race. Formula 1 has a very large fan base, so this game should attract plenty of attention and create more web properties on the Web such as race forums, blogs, fan portals where players will be able to share their experiences, results, tips and tricks.

iOpener, the developers behind “Real-Time Racing” are using the technology used in other “Real-Time Games” products which all make use of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems).

There is plenty more going of with this, so visit their site for more details. According to their site, the game is to launch sometime in the latter part of 2008.

Being a Formula 1 fan, I’d be very interested in playing this game. Judging from what is available so far about it, it should be very exciting, if for no other reason, then because I’ll be able to overtake Kimi Raikkonen, while Lewis Hamilton is already behind me eating my dust .

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I’ve been busy last couple of weeks working on a small scale site for a friend who has a villa on the Adriatic coast. The villa offers rooms and apartments, and the potential clients come from various countries in Europe. They wanted the site to contain content in three languages - English, Italian and Croatian. This posed somewhat of a challenge, as we were faced with a decision on how to implement multilingual content on a single site, and have the benefit of Google actually indexing it and showing the appropriate pages in search results.

Having addressed this issue before in previous projects, and having read a lot about others’ opinions on best practices, I’ve come to the conclusion that there isn’t a pure best practice in this case, but rather best logic approach. We decided to store content in different languages in subfolders on the site (rather than subdomains). The site is in Croatian by default (root), while English and Italian are in subfolders (/en and /it respectively).

Bottom line is, we have achieved positive results, as most pages are ranked for targeted queries for their appropriate language in the top 20, some even in the top 10, and all this without link building and other off-site SEO. I don’t expect the pages to keep ranking well for too long without additional off-site SEO work, but for now this is pretty good.

This is the second time a site I worked on produced satisfactory search engine results for multilingual content stored in subfolders, rather than on subdomains or separate domains altogether. I am more and more convinced that the choice of content structure should be viewed from the logical/development/usability point of view, rather than worrying too much about how Google is going to digest content in different languages on the same site. The key may be consistency - make it easy for the observer to understand the content structure, and stick to it without adding unnecessary layers of complication.

If content organization seems logical and easy to understand to a human looking at the content structure on a site, I am pretty sure a search engine algorithm will understand it just as well. Naturally, depending on the size and level of localization, a site can require very different approaches for housing multilingual content, as described in this document.

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Firefox is treading into mobile browser territory, and it was about time. Although the concept (Mobile/FennecVision) of porting Firefox to the mobile platform is not that new, this is the first time I’ve seen an actual concept presented to the public. Aza Rask, head of user experience at Mozilla Labs, has posted a screencast on his blog, discussing the new concept of Firefox mobile. The actual product, once delivered to the public may end up looking quite different than this, but it shows some very interesting solutions to providing a near desktop/laptop browsing experience on a mobile phone.

Looks very interesting and promising, with some nice features as well. While Opera does a good job with Opera Mini and Opera Mobile, and Digia (which announced a beta download of their latest mobile web browser during June 2008), it’s good to have another option for mobile web browsing.

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Viewzi, the search engine that allows its users to choose with what kind of view they would like the results to be presented to them, is open to the public for use as of today. Basically, you get to decide what kind of results you’d like to see depending on what you are looking for (if your search query is “Bob Dilan” then you choose whether you want to see text results, or music files, biography, video). Results are aggregated from various sources on the Internet. So far, only those who have registered to be beta testers/users could use the engine, but now anonymous usage is open (no login needed).

It’s an interested search experience to say the least. I’ve used Viewzi during restricted beta for my own search needs to find things I’d most likely be using Google for for comparison’s sake, and found that majority of results shown to me in various views are quite satisfactory. Then again, if you are a Google SERP nut, you’ll probably have a hard time adjusting to a completely new way of seeing search results on this site, as the interface, although easy enough, does require some getting used to, especially, with years of [enter search engine name here] SERPs. Basically, after a small leap of faith, everything comes together just fine. I think Viewzi, as a fresh approach to searching, is definitely going to stay on the search horizon in the future.

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Here’s a pic of a package containing the new 3G iPhone which has been sent to MacTalk in Australia. It says “Do not open until tuesday June 10th 2008″. Would you wait until then?

Image credit: MacTalk

So, I’m just guessing here, the new iPhone is going to be announced on June 10th!?

UPDATE: this is most probably a hoax, but unlike the other attempts, there are no actual pictures of the phone shown (the box is unopened), so there is still a small chance of authenticity.

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