engine

Google is about to embark on its biggest renovation in history. In order to keep up with increased competition and new technology, the Web giant is working to keep ahead of the pack by completely revamping its search function, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Google search executive Amit Singhal told The Wall Street Journal that the new Google search will look more like "how humans understand the world."

Changes are expected to roll out over the next few months, the Journal reports, but the full makeover to "next generation of search" will likely take years. … Read more

What if tobacco could grow fuel in its leaves?

As far-fetched as that sounds, a group of scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab is testing the limits of genetic engineering to make the widely grown tobacco plant a carrier for hydrocarbons.

Scientists will be at the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit this week to discuss the project, which received a $4.8 million grant over three years. The grant fits ARPA-E's mission of funding research that is high-risk but with a potential for a breakthrough.

Biofuels or biochemicals are typically made by growing plants and then converting that biomass into … Read more

Siri can be great in car, but you need to do some work to get it to play ball with all your other gear.

If you're a fan of America's long and storied history of great engineering, the National Park Service has got something for you.

On Monday, the park service's Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) Autodesk and kubit will announce the technological process of documenting these structures, a process that resulted in a broad collection of 3D imagery of projects like the Space Shuttle Discovery, as well as NASA launching pads, famous bridges, and more. The imagery was used to generate what are known as "point clouds" of data that, together, show a 3D version of the object. … Read more

Google has acquired the final pending patent applications for Cuil, a defunct search engine once touted as a Google challenger.

Cuil's last seven pending patents were acquired by Google with an execution date of February 4, 2011, according to a blog post at SEO By The Sea, but weren't recorded at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office until last week. The record reportedly does not reveal the financial terms of the transfer, but SEO By The Sea notes that Cuil co-founder Anna Patterson returned to Google in 2010.

The patents focus mostly on search interfaces, such as … Read more

When multitasking in OS X, sometimes the programs you are using might output notification sounds or otherwise use the OS X audio system in ways that could interfere with your other tasks.

If you increase the volume to watch a movie while you have Mail open in the background, then when you receive a new message, Mail will output a loud New Mail sound. While you can disable Mail's notification sounds or quit the program, you might wish to keep it open and hear when the Mail arrives, but just not as loud.

Other similar scenarios might also benefit … Read more

Big surprise, Google continued to reign over all other U.S. search engines in January with 66.2 percent share, according to data released today by market researcher ComScore.

Not only did Google overshadow all other engines, it also managed to take some of Yahoo's traffic and grow by 0.3 percentage points.

Yahoo did not have it easy last month--users' searches decreased by 0.4 percent putting it at 14.1 percent share. It was the only search engine not to increase share or at least keep the status quo in January.

Over the last year, Yahoo's … Read more

According to a report by the New York Times, nearly 25 percent of the traffic handled by search engine Wolfram Alpha comes from Siri, Apple's voice-controlled personal assistant software.

Apple announced a partnership with Wolfram Alpha in October when it released the iPhone 4S and introduced Siri. Wolfram Alpha differs from other search engines in that its results are based on data curated by Wolfram Alpha, not on algorithms attempting to sort the Web like Google or Bing.

Despite early criticism of Wolfram Alpha's self-described "computational knowledge engine," including its initial focus on mathematical and scientific … Read more

Pop quiz, tough guy: How do you make VW/Audi's direct-injected, turbodiesel engines better? If you answered "add another turbo," then congratulations. You're now ready to work for Audi's R&D department!

Okay, so I'm sure that Audi's engineers are a bit more qualified than that, but "adding another turbo" is exactly what they did with the advent of the new BiTDI 3.0 V-6 engine. The new engine, which will find its way under the hood of diesel-powered A6 and A7 Sportback models in the U.K. market, features … Read more