i202 Fall 2010 School of Information, UC Berkeley

Recently launched, Blekko, a new search engine, is attempting to provide users with better search results. Currently, when individuals search the web, they have to sort through various sites in order to find 'trustworthy' information. According to Rick Skrenta, CEO and co-founder of Blekko,'the web is filling up with spam and low-rent webpages from content farms like Demand Media, saying the web now has 100 billion urls, most created by bots.'

Published Monday, the NYT wrote about the Never-Ending Language Learning system (NELL). This article touches upon many topics from recent lectures!

Different words means different  things to different people! According to this article, thieves in Georgia keep stealing 3 street signs: Green Acres, Boone's Farm and Mary Jane Lane. Apparently these thieves attribute some meaning to these signs. Perhaps it reminds them of their favorite activities and products?  I, personally, never watched Green Acres or sipped on some fine Boone wine. And the name Mary Jane reminds me of Spider Man, not marijuana.

Last week, NYT featured Julius Eulberg, a German who loves collecting antiques, especially porcelain birds. This piece made me think of Kimra's chapter-- especially the part about retrieving the chair. Can you imagine having to fetch one of his 300 + birds? How would he describe it in order for you know which porcelain bird he was talking about?

This week's New Yorker recently featured an interesting article about phone books. Once a source for information retrieval, "its legitimacy as a reference tool was undermined long ago-- first by 411, then by the Internet and smartphones."

In an attempt to reduce spam, scams, and the spread of pornography via cell phone, the Chinese government is requiring citizens and visitors to provide identification when purchasing a SIM card. Working with government-control telecom companies, convenience store owners and street vendors, China hopes to organize a system in which all cell phone numbers and SIM cards can be linked to an individual.