Google Turns 15 With 'Hummingbird' Algorithm Update

Google (GOOG) is celebrating its 15th anniversary with an big update to its search algorithm and, of course, one of its "doodles" on Google.com.

Google updates its algorithm hundreds of times each year, but executives have been touting the new update called "Hummingbird," which the company quietly rolled out earlier this month.

"When Google switched to Hummingbird, it's as if it dropped the old engine out of a car and put in a new one," wrote SearchEngineLand.com blogger Danny Sullivan. "It also did this so quickly that no one really noticed the switch."

The new algorithm should help users who prefer "conversational search," says Sullivan. Google's mobile software, Android, and other Google products let users search by speaking to their devices — the new update reportedly will better focus results based on speech patterns.

The update comes in concert with Google's 15th anniversary as a company. Google incorporated in California on Sept. 4, 1998, and started working in a garage in Menlo Park, Calif., near Stanford University, where founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were Ph.D. students. (Google hasn't responded to our question about why Sept. 27 and not Sept. 4 is the preferred birth date.)

Wall Street expects Google's 2013 revenue to rise 40% to $59.6 billion. Not bad for a company the same age as the average high school sophomore. The company's market cap is fast approaching $300 billion. On the Nasdaq, only Apple (AAPL) has a higher valuation.

Google is, of course, having some fun on its birthday. It posted a game on Google.com where users can spend time trying to smash candy out of a pinata. And if you search for "Google in 1998," you'll get a look at what search results used to look like.

To mark the birthday, the Pew Research Center on Friday released information from a poll of Internet users that it conducted in April and May. Pew found that 56% of Internet users have used a search engine to look up their own name to see what information is available about them online. Seems low to us, but that is up from 22% the first time Pew asked that question, in 2001.

That percentage, says Pew, has been pretty steady since at least 2009, when 57% of Internet users said they had searched for results connected to their name online.

Syria crisis: No clear winner in Russia-US G20 duel

Both sides have claimed victory in this G20 gladiatorial contest over Syria, but identifying who is on which team is not straightforward.

So who backed Russia and who backed the United States?

According to President Vladimir Putin, the outcome was not a 50/50 split, but a balance of opinion in Russia's favour.

He claimed that, at the G20 dinner on Syria, only four countries - France, Turkey, Canada and Saudi Arabia (plus a British prime minister rebuffed by his own parliament) - had backed America.

Whereas siding with Russia in rejecting military strikes on Syria, he says, were seven nations: China, India, Indonesia, Argentina and Brazil, as well as South Africa and Italy.

Yet not all the Russian president's views on Syria were endorsed by other G20 leaders.

Who else in St Petersburg publically declared, as he did, that Syria's "so-called chemical weapons attack" was in fact "a provocation staged by rebels, in hope of winning extra backing from their foreign backers"?

In making that categorical claim, the Russian leader left little room for compromise and ended up looking, perhaps, somewhat isolated.

Earthquake strikes southwest China, killing 4

A 5.9-magnitude earthquake killed at least four people Saturday morning in southwestern China, state media reported.

Officials reported 10 injuries as emergency teams began to respond, the Xinhua News Agency said.

The state-owned news agency quoted Yunnan provincial officials as saying that 600 residential units collapsed. An additional 55,000 residential units were damaged, and 9,200 people had been forced to relocate, Xinhua reported.

The quake -- with a depth of 10 kilometers -- hit in remote areas near the border of the Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Roads were blocked in some villages by boulders rolling down mountains, and 17 people on three tourist buses were trapped by landslides, Xinhua said.

The Civil Affairs Ministry in Yunnan province was sending tents and clothing, Xinhua said.

The epicenter was near Benzilan Township, the USGS reported.

"We are heading to Benzilan," Liao Wencai, vice secretary of the Deqen County Committee of the Communist Party of China, told Xinhua. "The telecommunication there has been cut off, and many residents cannot be reached by mobile phone."

Xinhua reported it reached a Benzilan resident who said people "rushed outdoors hastily" because of the strength of the quake, but houses there did not collapse.

On Wednesday, a 5.1-magnitude earthquake hit the same region.

UN investigators leave Syria as Obama plans strike over chemical weapons

 UN experts investigating a suspected chemical weapons attack have left Syria, opening a window into a possible US strike after Washington concluded the Damascus regime unleashed poison gas on civilians.

The 13 inspectors, led by Ake Sellstrom, left their Damascus hotel before dawn and crossed early morning into Lebanon at the town of Chtaura in a convoy of vehicles.

They are due to report back immediately to UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who has appealed to the West to allow time for their findings to be assessed.

Their departure heightened expectations of a US-led military strike on the Syrian regime, after Barack Obama gave his clearest indication yet that an attack was imminent.

"We cannot accept a world where women and children and innocent civilians are gassed on a terrible scale," Obama said at the White House.

"We are looking at the possibility of a limited, narrow act."

As CEO, Are You Putting Your Best Face Forward?

Spanx Founder and Owner Sara Blakely

 Your product or service isn’t the only thing you need to be promoting. As a CEO, one of the most powerful exposure and revenue-building tools your company has is, in fact, you.

CEO branding is the new corporate branding. People want an emotional connection to the brands they are invested in, so it’s important for those brands to have a face — and that’s where CEO branding comes in.

CEO branding is the process of aligning your face with your corporate brand. This process includes public relation activities, media interviews, philanthropy, articles, books, speaking engagements and employee treatment. It requires integrating the CEO’s brand DNA into how the company is viewed publicly. In a competitive marketplace, it is a differentiating factor. Though it happens naturally, CEOs need to be forward-looking in strategizing their brand — or reactive in managing it.

Consider these survey results compiled by Burson-Marsteller, one of the world’s largest PR firms. that illustrate the importance of a CEO’s reputation to the success of the company. The results indicated that, based on a CEO’s reputation:


Read More Article : http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2012/08/08/as-ceo-are-you-putting-your-best-face-forward/

Top Lashkar terrorist Abdul Karim Tunda arrested by Delhi Police

New Delhi: One of India's 20 most wanted terrorists, Abdul Karim Tunda, was arrested by the Special Cell of Delhi Police from the Indo-Nepal border last night. The Delhi Police has been given a three-day custody of the wanted Lashkar-e-Taiba man, arrested with a Pakistani passport issued in January this year.

Tunda, around 70 years old and wanted in 21 cases, is accused of masterminding over 40 bomb blasts in New Delhi, Panipat, Sonepat, Ludhiana, Kanpur and Varanasi between December 1996 and January 1998 that left 21 dead and over 400 injured. He is also accused of involvement in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case.

In the dossier handed over to Pakistan after the 26/11 attacks, Tunda ranks number 15 among the men wanted by India. The dossier claims he is close to Jamat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks. Delhi Police also hinted at his association with Mumbai underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's gang.

According to sources, Tunda was allegedly indoctrinated into terrorist activities by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI in the eighties, which also trained him in making improvised explosive devices.

After the serial blasts, Tunda allegedly fled to Bangladesh where he came under direct command of Lashkar chief Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi. He soon became LeT's top bomb maker.

The hunt for Tunda died down in 2000 when Indian intelligence agencies believed a news item that he has been killed. He returned to the surveillance radar in August 2005 when Abdul Razzak Masood, an alleged LeT chief coordinator in Dubai arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi police, disclosed that Tunda was alive and had met him in Lahore in December 2003.

Tunda's name surfaced again in July 2006 when Kenyan police claimed to arrest him. But it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity with the arrested person being a UK national.

Sources said Tunda had been guiding the banned Students Islamic Movement of India, which later turned into Indian Mujahideen. He is also accused of motivating the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar to perpetrate attacks against the Buddhists there.

Is Durga Shakti Nagpal really wanted in Punjab?

 She opted for a change from her parent IAS cadre Punjab and shifted to Uttar Pradesh. Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Durga Shakti Nagpal, who recently hit the national headlines after the Uttar Pradesh government unceremoniously suspended her for taking on the sand mafia, can perhaps draw solace from the Punjab government going on record to say she will be welcome if she opted to return.

But is she, or officers like her, really wanted in Punjab or any other state?

Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal has said that Durga Shakti would be "welcome to come back if she wished to".

The young IAS officer, who served out her probationary period in Mohali, adjoining Chandigarh, from June 2011 to August 2012, had opted for a cadre change after getting married to Uttar Pradesh cadre IAS officer Abhishek Singh.

But the question being asked in political and other circles in Punjab is whether the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal bosses would really like to have an officer who showed courage to go after the politically well-connected and moneyed sand mafia in Uttar Pradesh. If Durga Shakti comes back to Punjab and starts doing the same things that she was doing as "part of duty" in Uttar Pradesh, it could spell trouble for many influential people in Punjab.

Illegal sand mining in Punjab is rampant and the Punjab and Haryana High Court is seized of the matter. Leaders of the opposition Congress have been shouting from the rooftops that the Parkash Singh Badal government and some of its ministers are openly running or supporting the sand mafia. Just how effective will be the ban imposed by the National Green Tribunal remains to be seen.

In Punjab, by conservative estimates, the illegal mining and monopolisation of sand is worth several crore rupees on a daily basis. The money is being allegedly pocketed by influential people, especially from the ruling elite. A public suit before the high court has pointed out that illegal mining in Punjab is worth Rs.10,000 crore annually.